


Friends Only

by Multiple_Universes



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Canon Universe, Drunk Shenanigans, Established Relationship, Family Feels, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Humor, Imaginary Weddings, M/M, Mutual Pining, Podium Family, Post-Canon, Road Trips, Victor Nikiforov & Yuri Plisetsky Father-Son Relationship, Wedding Planning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-17 07:42:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 34,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15456540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multiple_Universes/pseuds/Multiple_Universes
Summary: “Imagine the ideal wedding! You exchange your vows and kiss the love of your life as the sun sets. You lead Yuuri to a grand hall. We all sit down to a delicious dinner. There is dancing all evening long. Everything goes perfectly, without a hitch. You made sure every detail would be just right and in the night when you return to your room (complete with a big fancy bed, of course) Yuuri is so grateful for your months of hard work and planning that he gives you a wedding night to remember. And all you need to do is go on one little trip with your friends to arrange it!”





	1. Day Zero – The Agreement

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! It’s so exciting to start a new fic! I thought I’d try a few different things with this one, so there will be silly summaries at the beginning of each chapter in a reference to Jerome K. Jerome. (I don’t know if anyone actually reads the summaries, but why not, right?)
> 
> This fic assumes that after Yuuri and Victor move in together to St. Petersburg they compete against each other. The road trips in this fic take place in the summer after that season. Also I’ve seen people debate this, but for this fic I’m assuming that when Victor said he’ll marry Yuuri when he wins gold, he was talking about Grand Prix Final gold.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which an agreement is reached. – Talks of medals and bedheads. – On the dangers of clinging. – The perfect wedding. – Two trips are arranged. – Getting dragged along. – A heart-breaking farewell.

It was a warm sunny day in Basel, the kind of day that’s so bright and innocent it makes it hard to believe that someone somewhere could be plotting something. And yet, someone _was_ plotting something.

Phichit Chulanont, the star of Instagram and Thailand’s pride, sat in a café with Christophe Giacometti, a skater well-known for his erotic performances on the ice. They sat outside, in the shade of a big umbrella. Around them a brightly-dressed crowd walked down the street. They watched it in silence for several minutes, as if mesmerised by the sight.

Then Phichit downed the last of his iced drink and rose to his feet. “So it’s agreed?” he asked, holding out his hand.

Chris shook it with a smile, watching Phichit over his sunglasses. “Of course!”

“You take baby Yuri and Mila. I’ll take Otabek and Georgi,” Phichit said. He laughed. “I think Victor will like it.”

“I’m _sure_ Victor will like it,” Chris confirmed with a nod. He finished his drink and got up. “I hear St. Petersburg is nice this time of the year.”

This made Phichit laugh. “You should hear Yuuri on the subject!”

They walked away together, leaving a few euros on the table for the waiter.

 

Summer in St. Petersburg was perfect. Everything in St. Petersburg was perfect, but the most perfect thing was the young man asleep in the bed next to him.

There were days when he would stop and think, _This is my life now. What did I ever do to deserve such bliss? Who can I thank and how? How do I thank someone for this?_ And other days he would act and feel as if this was the most natural thing in the world.

The young man turned over and opened his eyes. “Good morning!”

“It was so dark in this room before now.” He shifted closer. “Don’t close your eyes: without them there is no light in the room.”

There was a chuckle. “Oh really?” He closed his eyes.

“Ah! I can’t see anything again!”

“Victor, _really_!” Yuuri exclaimed, opening his eyes again and sitting up.

“No, no, don’t get up!” He reached out, caught Yuuri and pulled him back down again.

“Yuuri,” he whispered after a while, “why don’t we spend the rest of our lives like this? Who said we need anything else?”

“Oh really? What about figure skating? What about your medals?” Yuuri asked, sliding his fingers over Victor’s hands.

“You have my permission to throw them out,” Victor said, kissing Yuuri behind the ear.

“What about that gold I’m supposed to win?” He opened one of Victor’s hands and traced out the lines on his palm.

Victor made a non-committal noise, his legs wrapping around Yuuri.

“What about that promise,” Yuuri went on, a note of amusement in his voice, “to marry me when I win a gold medal in the Grand Prix Final, hmm? If I don’t get to compete, does that mean that we’ll never get married?”

Victor was rubbing his nose against Yuuri’s skin now.

“Phichit said he’s coming today,” Yuuri told him after a while, changing tactics, “with Chris.”

“They can have the apartment to themselves and do whatever they want,” Victor muttered, pressing his face against Yuuri’s cheek.

“He’s been telling me that he really wants a picture of your bedhead for his Instagram account,” Yuuri said with a note of malice in his voice. He’d been with Victor long enough to know what kind of arguments worked on him.

Victor sat up. “What?”

Yuuri rolled over onto his side and laughed as Victor climbed out of the bed and rushed for the bathroom.

An hour later when there were no hints of anyone’s bedhead they sat on the couch, their arms around each other, ready for their guests.

 

A visit to what Phichit called the Katsuki-Nikiforov apartment was always guaranteed to have several things. Food was one. Both Victor and Yuuri were raised to always have food ready for guests, no matter what time they dropped in. Food was important. Not having food for your guests was the number one crime, even worse than murder (which raised the question about poisoned food of course). Drinks was another important thing to have. If it was late in the evening this became alcoholic drinks that Yuuri would then do his best to turn down. But most importantly: a visit to their apartment would contain the sight of Victor, draped over Yuuri, no matter where the two of them were. Naturally, this made it really hard to remember which of them was the fanboy and which – the living legend.

Chris and Phichit watched with a mix of amusement and frustration as Yuuri poured them tea with Victor’s arm resting on his shoulder. They did their best to make polite small talk, catching up on the last few weeks and exchanging gossip about other skaters, as if things were perfectly normal and not irritating at all.

There was a brief pause and then the oven filled it with loud and frantic beeping.

“Ah!” Yuuri exclaimed, getting up. “It’s ready!”

Victor rose to go with him, but Chris caught him by the arm, holding him back.

Phichit jumped to his feet. “I’ll help you, Yuuri!” and followed him into the kitchen.

Victor stared after them with a longing expression on his face.

“You’re no fun anymore,” Chris said, sipping his tea. “And, what’s worse, if you keep this up, you’ll run into trouble in your paradise.”

Victor gave him a puzzled look. “What does that mean?”

“The two of you have become inseparable. Did you notice that?” Chris spoke casually, as if he was pointing out a curious detail outside.

Victor stared in the direction of the kitchen again and then turned back to look at his friend. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing,” Chris said with a shrug. “It’s just that it’s not exactly fun for the rest of us.” He put his cup down on the table and reclined on the sofa. “I want to invite you out on a trip, but I already know how it will go: you’ll just cling to each other the whole time, making the whole city around you feel like a third wheel.”

“So what?” Victor asked defensively. “He’s my fiancé! I’m allowed to cling to him, if I want to!”

“Yeah, sure,” Chris gave a dismissive wave. “Sure.”

“What does that mean?”

“I was just remembering all those fun times we had when the two of us went on trips together,” Chris said in a disinterested tone of voice.

“Now we can take Yuuri with us!” Victor exclaimed, getting excited at the prospect.

Chris shook his head. “I’m not going on a trip with the two of you.”

“Well, I’m not going on a trip without him,” Victor countered.

Chris studied his fingernails with a disinterested expression. “Shame. I just had the best idea for a trip, but I guess you’re not really interested, if we have to go without Yuuri.”

“No, I’m not!”

“Not even if it will help you organize your wedding?” Chris dropped the words like a bomb and threw a quick glance to see what kind of explosion would follow.

“Wedding?” Victor echoed.

Chris shifted forward, dropping all pretense of not caring. “Imagine the ideal wedding! You exchange your vows and kiss the love of your life as the sun sets. You lead Yuuri to a grand hall. We all sit down to a delicious dinner. There is dancing all evening long. Everything goes perfectly, without a hitch. You made sure every detail would be just right and in the night when you return to your room (complete with a big fancy bed, of course) Yuuri is so grateful for your months of hard work and planning that he gives you a wedding night to remember.”

Victor held his breath, as the blood rushed to his cheeks, as if afraid to disturb the image Chris had described. “And?” he whispered after a while.

“And all you need to do,” Chris went on, “is go on one little trip with your friend to arrange it!”

Victor lowered his eyes.

“We keep the whole thing a big surprise,” Chris continued, “so that when he gets there he doesn’t even know what to expect. Surely that is worth, what, a few days apart?”

Victor gave a big sigh, as if he’d been asked to sacrifice the most precious thing in the world.

“Finished!” Yuuri announced, walking in with Phichit, his arms full of whatever it was he’d cooked.

Chris and Victor watched Yuuri give everyone an equal portion. As he handed each person their plate he got a quiet "thank you" and the room would relapse into silence. Victor’s expression was pained, as if he was about to leave Yuuri forever.

It wasn’t until they were halfway into their meal when Yuuri asked Victor if something was wrong that Victor broke his silence at last.

“I’m going on a trip with Chris,” he announced.

Yuuri’s face fell. “Oh.” Then the corners of his mouth rose in a half-hearted smile. “Where are you going?”

“France,” Chris answered before Victor could say anything else.

“I hope the weather is good.” Yuuri did his best to look as if the news didn’t upset him. “You'll take lots of photos, right?”

He put on a smile and acted happy for his fiancé. It was painful to watch. Victor, on his part, looked ready to change his mind and take it all back. He put a hand over Yuuri’s and opened his mouth.

But Yuuri rushed off to the kitchen before Victor could say anything.

“You don’t have to do the dishes now,” Phichit said.

Yuuri raised his eyes from the sink and discovered that there were tears on his own face.

Phichit leaned against the counter and acted as if he didn’t see his best friend crying. “We should go on our own trip,” he said casually.

Yuuri wiped his eyes with his hand as discretely as he could. “I can’t go anywhere. Someone needs to stay with Makkachin.”

Phichit grabbed Yuuri’s arms. “Come on, Yuuri! I’ve wanted to go on a trip with you for _ages_ and this is the best chance I’m going to get! You’ll get married to Victor soon and then won’t have any time in your life for me.”

“What? That’s not true!” Yuuri argued. “Of course I will!”

“Just make some time for me now,” Phichit pleaded. “We’ll leave Makkachin with Victor’s parents. Come on, Yuuri. I promise it will be lots of fun! We’ll have some great adventures of our own! Don’t you want a change of scene?”

Yuuri gave a heavy sigh as if leaving Victor’s apartment was unbearably hard. “Oh. Alright. We’ll go on a trip too.”

“Great! I’ll book our flights and make all the reservations,” Phichit promised. “Leave it to me, Yuuri. I’ll find us the perfect destination!”

“You mean we’re not going to France?” Yuuri asked in surprise.

“Of course not,” Phichit said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “We’ll go to England.” He saw Yuuri’s mouth open to ask why and jumped in with, “To fix the relationship between England and France, of course.”

It was the answer Yuuri was least prepared for. “What?”

“Haven’t you heard?” Phichit asked, his eyes twinkling mischievously. “There’s a bet going online that if one of you went to France and the other – to England, then your love for each other would destroy the rivalry between those two countries.”

Yuuri gave Phichit an odd stare and elbowed him. “You just made that up!”

“And you believed it! Admit it!”

Yuuri couldn’t help it: his face spread into a smile and he burst out laughing. Phichit joined in and they giggled, elbowing each other.

Victor chose that moment to appear in the doorway of the kitchen. He stared at the two friends in confusion. “Yuuri, I was thinking…” he began. “What are you laughing about?”

“Nothing,” Yuuri said. He straightened up and tried to look serious. “Can your parents look after Makkachin for a week?”

“Yes, of course!” Victor paused. “Why?”

Phichit gave Victor a triumphant look. “Because Yuuri and I are going on a trip too!”

Victor’s mouth opened and closed several times as he struggled to find the right words to express just how unfair this was.

“Where are you going?” Chris asked, appearing at Victor’s side.

“England,” Phichit answered. “I’ll call Georgi and Otabek and see if they’re willing to join us. You and Georgi can take turns driving,” Phichit told Yuuri.

Now it was Yuuri’s turn to act surprised. “I thought it would be just the two of us,” he admitted.

“The more the merrier, right?” Phichit gave Victor a look. “Well, up to a point, I suppose.”

“We can’t be outdone like this, Victor,” Chris insisted, “we’ll need to ask two people to join us.”

Victor stared at Chris and then at Phichit. Finally his gaze turned to Yuuri. When did things get so far out of his control? Why couldn’t it just be the four of them going together? He voiced the idea aloud, hoping that would put an end to it all, but it wasn’t met with the reaction he hoped for.

“Absolutely not!” Chris exclaimed. “No fiancés, no boyfriends and no significant others on this trip. Friends only!”

“Agreed!” Phichit nodded in approval. He folded his arms over his chest and leaned back against a counter. “Who will you take, then?”

Victor and Yuuri watched, unable to understand at which point two innocent-sounding trips turned into a sort of competition.

“What do you say to Yurio and Mila, Victor?” Chris asked, his eyes still on Phichit.

“Sure?” Victor stammered out. He kept trying to think of a way out, but no way presented itself. _Think of the wedding plans,_ he told himself. _It’s just for a week and I’ll come back and be with Yuuri again._

“Come, Yuuri, we’ll need to discuss all the details,” Phichit said and led Yuuri away. “Victor will take care of the dishes,” he threw over his shoulder.

To Victor’s great amazement Phichit coaxed Yuuri into leaving the apartment to go somewhere else to plan the trip. After all the talk of weddings, he was starting to feel as if they were planning two simultaneous bachelor parties.

“Great,” Chris said, “now we can talk about the details of the trip without Yuuri finding out.”

Victor let Chris sit him down and did his best to listen to what his friend was saying, he really did, but he thought instead of a whole week without Yuuri. He tried to tell himself that he’d spent weeks away from Yuuri during the skating season, but it didn’t make him feel any better about it. They’d planned to spend the whole summer together and here they were – splitting up for an entire week!

He stared at Chris and knew that there was no way he would get out of this. There was nothing left to do but give in to the inevitable. He tried to pay attention, but when Chris asked for his opinion he agreed without any idea as to what he was agreeing to whatsoever.

In a different part of the city Yuuri was doing much the same, which suited Phichit perfectly.

 

The next day Yuri Plisetsky was out on a motorcycle ride with Otabek, who’d come to St. Petersburg to visit his friend. They drove out of the city to a quiet spot where they could sit in the grass and talk without anyone getting in the way.

Yuri was strong-willed and short-tempered and he always spoke what was on his mind, so Otabek was surprised to see him struggle for words with an expression that could almost be described as embarrassed.

“There’s this stupid trip that Victor’s friend organized and they want me to go with them,” Yuri began. “They wouldn’t leave me alone about it.”

Otabek was silent for a while, as if listening to the wind blow through the grass. “I was invited to go with Yuuri and Phichit,” he finally admitted.

“What the hell are they planning?” Yuri muttered. “This is all the p- Ka- Yuuri’s doing, isn’t it?” He coughed as if he had something stuck in his throat. For some reason he couldn’t call Yuuri names when he was around Otabek.

The other skater nodded as if he didn’t notice Yuri’s slip up. “I want to get to know Yuuri Katsuki,” Otabek admitted.

Yuri gave him a surprised look. _Why?_ He didn’t ask the question, because, deep, _deep_ down he had to admit that he’d felt the same way before he got to meet Yuuri.

“Who are you going with?” Otabek asked.

“That old hag Mila, Chris and Victor,” Yuri answered, forgetting that he hadn’t actually agreed to go. “What about you?”

“Georgi, Yuuri and Phichit,” came Otabek’s reply. As always, it was very short and to the point.

“Ughh,” Yuri groaned. “This just sounds so suspicious! Are they going to have a surprise wedding?”

“Maybe.”

Yuri wished he could kick something, but, apart from the tall grass, Otabek and Otabek’s bike, there wasn’t anything else nearby and he definitely wasn’t going to kick any of those three. “And France sounds like the kind of sappy place that idiot would get married in too!” In his frustration, he forgot about trying to look good in front of Otabek.

“I’m going to England,” Otabek said calmly.

Yuri spun around. “What? England?”

“Yes.”

So it wasn’t going to be a surprise wedding. Yuri felt himself relax.

“Mila and Chris both have a reputation,” Otabek said. He didn’t say “all the figure skaters know that parties that include both of them tend to get wild fast”, but he might as well have.

This trip sounded like the worst idea in the world. Yuri swore mentally and wished he could do so out loud.

“Victor will only have you,” Otabek added. The implication that Yuri would have to take care of the spoiled living legend was almost enough to make Yuri throw up.

“Yuuri will have me.” There was a promise in those words that Yuri didn’t understand right away. What was it to him if Otabek looked after the pig? He didn’t care! “I’ll text you,” was Otabek’s next promise.

“Yeah,” Yuri said absently, still puzzling over Otabek’s first promise. “Me too. Every day.”

Otabek smiled and gave a nod.

Later that evening when Yuri dropped down onto his bed and played the whole conversation over in his head did he realize just what Otabek had implied with his wish to get to know Yuuri better and his promise to take care of him. He swore loudly, startling Puma Tiger Scorpion.

“They’re not my parents!” he exclaimed after a long string of curses and turned over to bury his face in his pillow.

 

A week later with all the flights and hotels booked and all the suitcases packed, eight figure skaters gathered in Pulkovo Airport. Six of them were watching the other two with different emotions written all over their faces.

Yuuri and Victor held each other close and exchanged a heartbreaking farewell.

“Take care of yourself,” Victor said.

Yuuri’s head was resting on Victor’s shoulder. “You too,” he said softly.

Chris pretended he was wiping tears away with his handkerchief while Phichit tweeted photos of the inseparable couple getting separated. Yuri had the look of someone ready to commit murder.

“You’ll see each other in a week, for crying out loud!” Yuri exclaimed.

Mila went “aww” and then walked up to the unhappy couple pulling her phone out of her pocket and hitting the record button. She put on a different voice to imitate the announcement system and said, “Attention all passengers on the flight to Paris. Boarding began five minutes ago!”

“Ah!” Yuuri pulled away, saw her and flushed in embarrassment. “I thought Victor was about to miss his flight!”

“At this rate,” Mila said, a mischievous twinkle in her eye, “we will all miss our flights.”

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri fumbled, fidgeting, “I didn’t mean to –”

Victor threw his arms around Yuuri. “She’s just teasing you, Yuuri! We still have time! Give me a farewell kiss!”

“I can’t take this,” Yuri mumbled and turned away. “I’m going to demand they let me on the damn plane now.”

“Farewell, dear love,” Georgi said in that overdramatic way of his and with one hand pressed to his heart, “We must part ways now, but our love will live on forever!”

Yuri gagged.

Victor and Yuuri exchanged one last, passionate kiss that sped past “sweet and innocent” and headed straight for “inappropriate behaviour in public” at an alarming rate.

Otabek gave Yuri thumbs up and a nod.

Yuri nodded in return.

Phichit and Chris pulled the lovers apart and dragged them away in the direction of their gates, joking that it was a miracle that they’d grabbed the right person on their first try.

Holding her phone with one hand, Mila waved with the other at Phichit’s company, not wishing to interrupt her recording of Chris and Victor.

Otabek walked away, turning back at the last second to nod at Yuri again.

Yuri slouched off to his gate, resisting the urge to kick Victor.

Figure skating fans around the world hastily created twitter and Instagram accounts, determined to follow both trips. And the speculation began: why did Yuuri and Victor go on separate trips from each other?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have photos of all the places that will be mentioned in these trips. Should I embed them in the chapters, or should I just have links at the end of the chapters for anyone who wants to see what the places look like?


	2. Day One – A Dedicated Father

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the dangers of phones. – The ideal GPS. – His Majesty King Yuuri arrives. – Mechanics that send people to other countries. – The Hound of the Baskervilles. – An ideal father

The flight from St. Petersburg to Paris isn’t much shorter than the flight from St. Petersburg to London and it just so happened that while Victor’s group waited for their luggage Yuuri’s group landed at their destination. Yuuri texted Victor as soon as the plane touched the ground and Victor called to reassure Yuuri that he missed him a lot already.

Chris waited patiently for Victor to finish his call and then he snatched the phone out of his hand. “I’m confiscating this.”

“What? You can’t just –”

“You’ll get it back on the return flight,” Chris told him.

“But Yuuri will think that something bad happened to me, or that I’m ignoring him!” Victor protested.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“But –”

“We’ll let him know you’re safe and sound and miss him a lot,” Chris reassured him.

 

Several hundred kilometers away Phichit was doing the same to Yuuri’s phone, ignoring all his protests completely.

“We’re on this trip to have fun together, not for you to call and text Victor every second of every day,” Phichit announced. “You’ll tell him everything when you go home.”

Yuuri couldn’t argue with that.

 

Road trips always start slow. Where do we get the car? How long does it take to explain to the worker that we paid for everything in advance, but not for _that_ car? Where will everyone sit? And so on. Some time passes before you and your fellow travellers are finally out on the road, since – as it turns out – getting out of the parking lot requires a special trick and maybe some magic as well. And when you’re finally out you realize that you’d somehow lost an hour of your vacation on all that nonsense.

Georgi muttered a curse in Russian. Not only did he have to deal with a strange parking lot, but he also had to drive on the other side of the road from what he was used to. Phichit sat in the front passenger seat, trying to figure out which way they had to go and enter their first destination into his phone at the same time. Yuuri did his best to help while Otabek watched in silence.

“Turn around!” the app ordered, making them jump.

“What a bossy app!” Phichit exclaimed, laughing.

“Can you imagine a polite one, though?” Georgi asked, both hands turning the wheel as he looked over his shoulder. “Please turn around. Please don’t hit that car. Please follow my instructions and don’t make up your own.”

“Please stop making fun of the app,” Phichit supplied. “Or you could get different voices. Yuuri’s would have Victor’s voice, of course.”

_It would feel too much like training,_ Yuuri thought. “I think that would be too distracting,” he said.

Phichit didn’t argue. “Oh yes, _distracting_. Definitely.” His tone suggested that he was thinking something completely different from Yuuri, but Yuuri didn’t dare ask what he meant by that.

A long silence followed those words.

Yuuri was suddenly full of the worry that plagues many travellers on their journeys: he became convinced that he’d forgotten to pack something. He thought of all the essentials, but, no, they were all there in his suitcase. Maybe he’d forgotten his suitcase at the airport! But wasn’t he the one who put it in the trunk? Was he sure? How sure was he?

He worried and fretted and did his best to suppress the urge to ask Georgi to pull over so that he could check that his suitcase was definitely there in the trunk with all his stuff inside.

_No, if I do that, they’ll only laugh at me! I just have to hope that I have everything and think about something else._

Yuuri stared out the window and did his best to think about the landscape instead…

 

Victor stared out the window as the landscape sped by and thought about Yuuri. _I wonder what you’re doing right now, Yuuri. Are you thinking about me like I’m thinking about you? Are you warm? Are you cold? Are you hungry?_

It was warm and sunny. They passed a little city with a tall cathedral and Victor wondered how different his view was from what Yuuri was seeing that very instant.

Chris was at the wheel, throwing worried glances at the GPS and muttering something, but Victor tuned him out.

They passed a sign with a whole list of city names on it, but Victor had never heard of any of them before and they all meant nothing to him.

He closed his eyes, enjoying the feel of the sun on his face and the breeze against his skin. It was so good to go fast, as if they didn’t have a care in the world, as if…

The car slowed down and stopped.

Victor opened his eyes, expecting to see a traffic jam and found, to his great surprise, that the road ahead was completely empty and that Chris had merely pulled over.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” he asked almost in time with Yuri and Mila.

“We’re going the wrong way,” Chris announced, pushing buttons on the GPS and entering a different address.

“You mean you got us lost _already and with a GPS_?” Yuri asked in a mocking tone.

“We’re not lost, just going the wrong way. I made a mistake when entering the address,” Chris replied as calmly as he could.

“How did you figure out we were going the wrong way?” Mila asked.

“I know enough about France’s geography to say we’re headed north, when we should be going south.” Chris finished setting up the GPS and gave Victor a reassuring look. “There. That should be right now.”

“Take the next exit –” the GPS ordered.

“– and turn the hell around,” Yuri completed.

“On the bright side, it’s not telling us to turn around in the middle of the road,” Mila joked.

30 minutes later when they were headed the right way at last Mila asked an important question no one thought to bring up earlier, “So… how long before we get there?”

“Another hour and a half,” Chris answered, throwing a glance at the GPS.

“And where exactly will we be in about an hour and a half?” she asked.

“Middle of nowhere, France,” Yuri muttered.

“Sully-Sur-Loire, one of the chateaux in the Loire valley,” came the reply.

The other three skaters gave this answer some thought.

“Why there?” Mila finally asked.

“Does it matter?” Yuri said under his breath.

Chris explained that it was near Orleans where they would stay the night and no one argued with this logic.

 

Sully-sur-Loire had the moat and bridge that many medieval castles came with. It had the fish in the moat that were very important and not many tourists (which was a nice bonus). The group of friends posed for a collective photo in front of the chateau that Chris posted right away as proof that they’d made it.

Victor turned away and took the castle in with a smile on his face. It was so easy to imagine a king riding in, on the back of a noble white steed, followed by his loyal servants.

 

_Victor returned home after a tiring day out in the fields, fighting their enemy bravely with his knights by his side._

_Yuuri rushed out to greet him in long thick robes and…_

Victor gave a slight shake of the head. No, that was wrong.

 

_Victor sat in the tallest room of the tallest tower…_

He raised his head. It wasn’t tall at all, but… he could imagine it was taller, right? All the way up to the clouds…

 

_Victor sat by the window of the tallest room in the tallest tower and looked out, trying to spot his brave husband, King Yuuri. But clouds kept getting in his way…_

Shorter tower it was, then.

 

_Yuuri’s armour gleamed as he came galloping towards the castle and sweat glistened on his brow._ (Victor’s tower got even shorter.) _His raised arm held out a sword…_

But why a sword?

 

_He held a lance in his hand and…_

Maybe a jousting tournament was better…

“Oi! Victor!” Yuri elbowed him, pushing him to the side of the bridge as if he wanted to send Victor hurtling down into the dirty water below, and rousing him from wonderful dreams full of knights who all looked like Yuuri and who all fought to the death for his love.

“Hmm? What?”

“Are you going to come in or are you going to keep standing there like an idiot?” Yuri demanded.

Victor walked past him indignantly. “I was just admiring the view and enjoying the moment. Two things that you clearly wouldn’t understand.”

Yuri rolled his eyes and followed him in.

Victor, who’d expected grand interiors, was sorely disappointed by how empty the castle was inside.

_This is no good,_ he thought and some part of his brain wrote the castle off as one he’d never buy.

Afterwards they went for a short walk in the nearby town.

“It’s really nice here, isn’t it?” Mila said. “There’s a little church over there and the streets are full of flowers!”

They got ice cream and strolled back to the car, taking their time.

“Imagine living in a small town like this,” Mila went on. “Everyone is like family. There must be wine makers nearby and many farms. You can go down to the market in the morning and buy freshly-picked fruit…”

Victor’s mind wandered off again.

 

_He was the son of a baker and every morning he would bring the best loaf of his handmade bread to the butcher’s shop across the street where Yuuri worked._

_Yuuri swung his arm and cut the meat into perfect little pieces. His rolled-up sleeves revealed the muscles on his strong arms for all the world (but mostly for Victor) to see._

_Victor placed the loaf on one of the tables, propped his head up with his arms and gave a long dreamy sigh…_

“Yeah,” Yuri’s voice cut in, dripping with sarcasm, “I bet everyone in this town knows everything about everyone. They hate their neighbours and the kids all want to go live in Paris.”

Victor gave him a surprised look.

“Our Yuri is so upset,” Mila said. “Don’t worry, Yuri, I’m sure that Otabek is enjoying himself.” She reached out to hug him.

“Of course he is!” Yuri shot back, slapping her arms away. “He doesn’t have to deal with any of you!”

“Aww! Yuri!” Mila exclaimed, caught him and held him up over her head.

Chris snapped a photo of them with a soft chuckle and posted it.

This reminded Victor that there was still a way to get in contact with his dear Yuuri. “Did Yuuri post any photos?” he asked, ignoring the fight that broke out between Mila and Yuri.

Chris, knowing that Yuuri’s phone would’ve been confiscated as well, checked Phichit’s account instead.

“Looks like they’re having as much fun as we are,” he noted with a smile.

“I want to see!”

Chris held out his phone and let Victor take in pictures of Yuuri.

Everything was wonderful. Victor gave a happy sigh as he flicked through the pictures, gushing excitedly over the ones where Yuuri was alone in the shot. After a dozen photos he made a disappointed noise, realizing that there were no more new photos. Several months ago he’d gone through Phichit’s account and saved every single photo he’d posted of Yuuri. But even the old photos were precious to him now.

“Let’s see if he tweeted anything,” Chris suggested, taking his phone back.

A new tweet appeared from Phichit right then, as if he’d heard Chris speak and was responding.

_Oh no! A flat tire!_

The tweet came with a picture of everyone by the road, staring at the offending tire, looking at a completely loss as to what to do.

“Yuuri is in trouble!” Victor exclaimed. “We need to go help him!”

“How?” Chris asked. “They’ll sort it out themselves. Come on. Get inside the car. We have Orleans to drive to.”

Unable to argue with this (but wishing desperately he could), Victor headed for the car. This time Chris got him to drive, taking the role of navigator.

Mila and Yuri sat in the back and texted. Yuri was asking Otabek if he was ok. Mila texted Sara, trying to persuade her to come and join them.

“If you get any news about Yuuri, you have to tell me,” Victor insisted.

“They’re getting it swapped out,” Yuri muttered, “so why don’t you worry about the road instead?”

Victor tried to focus on the road and nearly succeeded, but then Mila chimed in with,

“Oh! Phichit just tweeted about the mechanic working on their car.” She laughed. “He says the man is cute and that he’s hitting on Yuuri.”

“What?” Victor pulled over sharply, throwing everyone against their seatbelts.

Yuri swore and demanded that someone else replace Victor behind the wheel before they all died.

“We’re going back to Paris,” Victor declared. “I need to fly to London right away.”

“You’re not going anywhere except Orleans,” Chris told him, putting a hand on the wheel.

“But my Yuuri –!”

“Your Yuuri,” Chris cut in mercilessly, “is a loyal fiancé. He’ll be fine.”

“New update from Phichit,” Mila announced. “ _Never mind. He just wanted Yuuri’s autograph for his wife._ ”

Victor let out a sigh of relief, which they teased him about all the way to Orleans.

 

Yuuri breathed out a sigh of relief. Finally the car was fixed so they could continue their journey.

They visited Salisbury with its old cathedral and were on their way to Stonehenge now, despite the tire’s best efforts to stop their progress.

Georgi was at the wheel as before, reciting a poem about the perseverance of love. Yuuri closed his eyes and listened to the words. He wasn’t sure who the poem was intended for – Georgi was reciting it in Russian and it was entirely possible that he was reciting it for his own benefit, but Yuuri had picked up a lot of Russian in the last year, not to mention the time before that…

 

_Yuuri sat in a restaurant with Victor and tried to read the menu out loud. He’d taken Russian classes long before Victor had become his coach and was trying to remember what he’d learned now._

_“Wow, Yuuri!” Victor exclaimed, clapping his hands. “That was perfect! I had no idea you spoke Russian!”_

_It was the evening before the Rostelecom cup. The subject of Russian hadn’t come up before now, because Yuuri had very carefully avoided it. There was no avoiding it now._

_“I… uh… took a university class because… I’m very interested in the culture…”_

_“That’s wonderful!” Victor gushed._

_Yuuri stared at his hands, thinking about the real reason he’d taken Russian language courses, the reason that sat across the table from him. The reason that…_

Yuuri realized he was blushing at the memory of that past embarrassment and opened his eyes.

The road turned this way and that. Fields spread out on either side of it, stretching out as far as the eye could see with the odd tree here and there, making sure the landscape wouldn’t look too monotonous.

And then, up ahead and with no warning whatsoever, out of the fields of tall grass, rose a majestic circle of old stones.

Everyone in the car went silent. Phichit snapped a photo and debated silently with himself what tags would be best while Georgi drove around, looking for the right exit.

Tourists weren’t allowed to just walk over to the stones. They had to go through a long lineup for tickets, then take a bus and only _then_ they could walk over to the stones.

And, of course, there was a little shop with souvenirs of the place.

“We have to go there when we come back,” Yuuri insisted as they walked to the bus. “I promised to bring something back for Victor.”

“Like a little model of Stonehenge?” Phichit suggested. “Or a shirt that says “Someone who loves me very much went to Stonehenge and got me this shirt”?”

“There must be other things,” Yuuri insisted.

Phichit considered this. “Probably,” he conceded. “Like shirts with models of Stonehenge drawn on them.”

They were at the stones now and Phichit dragged Yuuri off to take some pictures together.

“The stones are so mysterious, aren’t they?” Georgi said to Otabek.

Otabek considered this. There was a long silence as Georgi waited for Otabek to agree that, yes, the mystery of these ancient stones was very big indeed, perhaps the biggest of them all. Georgi prepared to complain about not having a time machine to find out all the answers when Otabek finally spoke.

“Maybe,” was his evaluation.

Georgi jumped into a long and exciting speech about the age of the stones and their purpose. He swung his arms around, no doubt to help better explain his point.

Otabek listened politely and didn’t argue. He was waiting for his chance to speak with Yuuri (or, to be more precise, to listen to Yuuri speak) and get to know him better and was perfectly happy to wait until the time was right. He watched Yuuri pose for photos with Phichit and then worry over how they turned out.

Everyone – from figure skaters to figure skating fans – considered Yuuri and Victor’s relationship the ideal to strive for. Otabek, however, watched them as a person watches their prospective in-laws. Both skaters took to Yuri as if he was their son and it was a long-running joke among the figure skating team in Russia that after the wedding there will be a formal adoption ceremony as well.

Otabek wanted to please Yuuri. Once Georgi finished talking, Otabek walked over to Yuuri and Phichit and offered to take photos of them.

Afterwards, he sent one of the photos to Yuri and wrote in that serious way of his that Yuuri was enjoying Stonehenge and was feeling well.

 

 

Fans watched the photos pour in. Someone jokingly rated one of them and a rating war broke out. People kept score, trying to decide if Yuuri’s or Victor’s photos were better.

Phichit and Chris both noticed this, of course, and, spurred on by their competitive personalities, did their best to snap photos that would win.

Here was Yuuri in the souvenir shop, looking for the perfect gift for Victor.

Here was Victor worrying about Yuuri.

And so on…

 

It was a long drive to Exeter where a big cathedral and their hotel waited for them.

“We’re near Dartmoor here,” Georgi told them as he drove.

“Dartmoor?” Yuuri repeated. The name was completely new to him.

“You know? _Beware of going out onto the moor at night when the forces of evil are abroad._ ”

“No,” Yuuri admitted. It sounded like a quote from something, but it rang no bells for Yuuri whatsoever.

Georgi told them about Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles – an evil dog that ran through Dartmoor at night and killed people.

It was a terrifying tale without a doubt, but Yuuri, still tired from the flight, dozed off in the back seat, lulled by the monotony of the view out the window.

 

_The moon shone high in the sky, but the fog rolled in and made it hard to see anything around them._

_Yuuri walked hand in hand with Victor through the moor while Victor talked about the old curse on his family and described a great big hound._

_Victor was the last of the Baskervilles – an old noble family that lived out on the moors. Somewhere out there was their house._

_Still the road went on and on and wouldn’t end._

_They stopped. Victor took Yuuri’s face with his hands and Yuuri closed his eyes, preparing himself for a kiss._

_A long howl tore through the silence, sending shivers down their spines and making Yuuri open his eyes wide in horror._

_“The hound!” Victor exclaimed, his voice trembling. “It’s that hound!”_

_They tried to run, but they couldn’t move an inch. They tried to cry for help, but the fog filled their lungs and mouths. They couldn’t make a single sound and could barely even breathe._

_Who would come to save them out here? There were no villages, no houses nearby._

_They heard the hound coming for them. The loud pitter-patter of paws against the road made them tremble all the more._

At least I’m with Victor, _Yuuri tried to tell himself, but this thought gave him no courage._

_A big figure loomed in the fog, getting closer, closer…_

_It stepped out of the fog and stopped a few meters away. Moonlight fell over it and Yuuri braced himself for a terrible sight: big jaws with sharp teeth._

_He raised his eyes and recognized Makkachin…_

The highway led Victor’s group to Orleans: an old city with a big Notre Dame cathedral.

The skaters checked into their hotel and headed out in search for dinner. On their way they found themselves in a square with a fountain, a carousel and a statue to show that the square was an official square after all.

Children played in the fountain, running around and laughing in the sprays of water.

“Go ahead,” Victor said to Yuri, “we can wait.”

Chris frowned. “I can’t: I’m starving!”

Mila offered to wait behind with Yuri and nearly got kicked in return.

Yuri threw furious looks all around him, feeling ready to commit murder. “I’m not a little kid!” he exclaimed. “If you like being little children so much why don’t _you_ go and play?”

He stormed off and Chris gave Victor a sympathetic look. “Teenagers are so hard to deal with. He’ll be locking himself away in this room next and blasting loud, angry music.”

Victor smiled, missing Chris’ point entirely. “I do my best, but Yuuri is much better at dealing with him than I am.”

This response made both Chris and Mila laugh. To Victor’s great confusion, both skaters admitted how much they wished they’d recorded him saying those words.

The merriment kept up all through their walk down the streets of Orleans until they found an old cobblestone street full of cafés.

“Where do you want to eat?” Victor asked Yuri, hoping that being allowed to choose would make the skater happier.

Yuri gave him a wary look, prepared to demand why Victor was asking _him_ and changed his mind. For once he would get to make a decision about their mad trip.

 

Evening fell on the city. Victor and Chris had a few glasses of wine while Mila enjoyed several shots of something stronger.

Victor called the waiter over to ask for more wine, but Yuri cut in sharply. “You had enough. I am _not_ putting up with one of you hangovers tomorrow!”

“Your son is worried about you, Victor,” Mila said and Yuri kicked her under the table.

Chris laughed into his glass and was kicked as well.

Yuri jumped to his feet and glared at everyone sitting at the table. “I’ve had enough of your stupid jokes. I’m going back to the hotel!”

They watched him storm off in silence.

“Teenagers…” Chris shook his head, as if he’d raised three teenagers at least.

“He didn’t even pay for his food,” Mila pointed out, rubbing her foot.

“That’s okay. I’ll cover it,” Victor volunteered.

_What a sweet father!_ Mila tweeted, snapping a shot of Victor paying for Yuri.

In response Phichit managed to convince Yuuri that it wasn’t just Victor who needed a present from England, but Yuri as well.

With Yuri gone, Mila and Chris tried to persuade Victor to have another drink, but Victor wanted to go back. He needed to make sure Yuri was okay, he insisted.

Mila tweeted about all of this and it wasn’t until much later that she realized that she’d spent the day tweeting solely about the adventures of Victor the dedicated father.

That evening the three of them made their unsteady way back to the hotel. Mila filled the streets of Orleans with loud Russian singing that made Victor blush and Chris give them both curious looks.

“What a lovely-ly-ly town!” Mila sang out in English once they were finally back. “There’s our great hotel! We should get more drinks! And go from bar to bar to find where the drinks are the best!”

Chris laughed. “Maybe next time. We have to be out on the road early tomorrow.”

“Aww! When did you get so boring?” Mila asked, poking Chris in the chest.

“My dear,” Chris said, putting an arm around her, “trust Chris when he tells you not to get so carried away just yet.”

He watched her go up the stairs, promising that if Sara had been there they would’ve have gone to bed right after dinner.

Chris chuckled, but Victor turned around and whispered to his friend that even though Mila got drunk fast she could drink a lot before she got to the next phase of drunkenness.

“Which is?” Chris asked.

“You don’t want to know,” Victor whispered in a horrified tone. He slid his fingers over his mouth as if zipping his shut and went silent.

Everyone got their own room in the hotel, which pleased Yuri to no end. As soon as he got back he called Otabek and complained to him about the trip, about Mila and Chris and for a long time – about Victor.

Otabek listened in silence.

“And how was your trip?” Yuri finally asked.

“Good,” came Otabek’s reply and Yuri knew that this was all he would get out of him.

He asked a question then that he only brought up to get Otabek to say something else. He didn’t care what the answer was. Not at all. Not one tiniest little bit. “How is Yuuri?”

“He misses Victor,” Otabek answered. That was a given, but some part of Yuri was pleased to hear it, as if it served as some sort of confirmation that all was right with the world. Yuuri missed Victor and Victor was missing Yuuri desperately. Everything was fine.

He nodded. “Of course,” he said, remembering that he was on the phone.

They were silent for a long time and Yuri wondered if Otabek’s personality was starting to rub off on him. This made him happy. Otabek was cool. He could ride in on his bike and solve everything.

 

_Otabek rode in on his bike and saved Yuri from this stupid trip…_

No, no, Yuri shook his head. Dumb fantasies like that were for idiots like Victor and…

They’d invited him. They were all much older than him, but they’d invited Yuri to come with them. Sure, it was annoying putting up with their mad antics, but they got him to come with them, like he was one of them now. Before, when he was still in juniors, they’d go on trips without him and tell him that he wasn’t old enough.

But now he was old enough, one of the senior skaters.

He wished Otabek a good night and went to sleep, feeling if not happy then at least something very close to it.

 

Mila woke up because of the angry pounding on her door.

“You stupid old hag!” Yuri shouted. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Hmmm?” She turned over and tried to return to her dream about a vacation with Sara. “What…?”

“Pull out your phone!” he demanded through the door. “Look at what you’ve done!”

She took out her phone and stared at it in silence, trying her best to understand.

#papaVictor was trending on Twitter. Other websites were picking it up. It was spreading. Everywhere was full of stories of what a wonderful father Victor was and how lucky his son, Yuri, was.

 

Phichit nodded in satisfaction at a job well done and prepared to go down to breakfast.

Otabek sent Yuri a text with just one word: congratulations.

Georgi sighed wistfully about the lucky children born from true love.

Yuuri Katsuki slept on, blissfully unaware of everything.

 

_Victor and he stood in the centre of Stonehenge and as the sun got in the right position to cast shadows all around them Yakov, dressed in long white robes, declared them officially married._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For people who want to see more photos. I give you:  
> [Stonehenge](https://www.flickr.com/photos/115120419@N08/sets/72157672277473332)  
> [Orleans](https://www.flickr.com/photos/115120419@N08/sets/72157657478902672)  
> [Sully-sur-Loire](https://www.flickr.com/photos/115120419@N08/sets/72157657478902642)  
> [Exeter](https://www.flickr.com/photos/115120419@N08/sets/72157672277391452)


	3. Day Two – Weddings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Musketeers in France. – The purpose of suits of armour. – A perfect wedding and how it will really happen. – An argument about weddings. – How Yuuri keeps Victor warm. – Pining without end.

“When I was small,” Victor said, “I was convinced that France was full of musketeers. I can’t really explain why, but that’s what I thought. And then I went to a competition in Paris and it turned out that there were no musketeers in France.”

A long silence greeted those words, broken only by Yuri’s sniggering. Victor waited for someone to say something, but no one knew how to react to a story like that.

Victor’s group was on its way to Chambord – another chateau in the Loire valley. The road followed the Loire River, going through the French countryside, presenting beautiful views on either side of them.

Mila tried to picture Victor as a musketeer and failed. For some reason, she had no problem picturing Yuuri as a musketeer, possibly in a duel with someone else over Victor’s honour. Possibly. Yuuri wasn’t violent and was really very sweet. Mila had taken to him right away the moment they met. So had everyone else. It was hard not to. Even Yakov was kinder to him than to most of his pupils.

Mila watched Yuri out of the corner of her eye. What was it like, she wondered, having Victor and Yuuri as your parents?

She didn’t wonder long, however: signs for Chambord appeared up ahead and then the top of the castle loomed over the trees, boasting an elaborate roof with many chimneys.

Victor walked ahead of everyone else, eager to explore this new chateau. Here was a _real_ castle with a properly grand exterior! This castle was definitely fit for a king, he decided.

Chambord came with a bunch of little houses around and – Victor’s face spread in a smile – a little church.

He could have the perfect wedding here, without a doubt!

 

_Victor and Yuuri were out on a hunt around the castle grounds. Both of them were finely dressed and on horseback and (once they got far ahead of everyone else) they held hands, slowing their horses down to a trot._

Victor knew next to nothing about hunting. His image of a hunt consisted of everyone on horseback with dogs chasing some rabbits and leading the way. Something happened and then they returned with their catch.

 

_And in the evening, when they’d caught enough for a big meal, he and Yuuri went to the chapel and exchanged their vows while music played and candles glowed._

_The wedding feast took place in a grand hall. Musicians played and everyone danced._

_Victor circled Yuuri with his arms raised and his eyes on his husband. Yuuri’s eyes glowed wonderfully in the candlelight…_

Victor described all this in vivid detail to Chris who smiled and said, “I’m sorry to break it to you, but I don’t think they’ll let you get married here.”

Poor Victor gave a sad sigh. It was always something.

Twenty minutes later he wasn’t as upset that he couldn’t get married in one of France’s grandest castles: the interior left him very unimpressed.

“It needs more,” Victor complained to Chris. “More furniture, more…” he waved his arm around, looking for inspiration, “more suits of armour!” he exclaimed at last, spotting one in a staircase.

Yuri slipped up to it and took a selfie with the suit, grinning menacingly.

“What are all the suits of armour for, anyway?” Mila asked.

“What do you mean “what are they for”?” Victor exclaimed indignantly. “You keep them handy in case the enemy strikes.”

Mila stared at the armour with a doubtful look on her face. “I don’t think anyone can put this on very fast. So what do they do? Shout to their enemies to stop and wait while they get dressed?”

Victor puzzled over this. “Maybe they have someone on the lookout and, as soon as they spot the enemy coming, the knights drop what they’re doing and run to get ready?”

“I can imagine how well that works!” Mila exclaimed and giggled.

 

_“We’re under attack!” Yuri shouted from the top of the lookout tower. He had to shout down a special tube so that the knights in the caste could hear him._

_Sir Victor broke his kiss with Sir Yuuri. “We need to go! Our king needs us!”_

_Sir Yuuri nodded and both of them ran to a hall lined with suits of armour._

_Sir Mila rushed into the hall after them, buttoning up her blouse. Sir Sara followed behind, a smile on her lips._

_The knights spent forever, trying to pull bits of their armour on, dropping some of the bits and filling the hall with loud metallic ringing. They had to help each other_

_Finally, they got their armour on and everyone was ready. They ran out, swords and lances in their arms._

_A big army surrounded the castle and a man stepped forward._

_It was Chris, dressed in a king’s robes and with a smile on his face. “Thought I’d come see how my friends are doing.”_

“And give my army an airing,” Chris added with a smile.

Mila and Victor giggled. Even Yuri was smiling.

 

Once they finished studying the insides of Chambord they made for Cheverny through little French villages, passing a couple more castles on the way.

The sky turned grey and a half-hearted rain started to fall.

Victor was driving with a sad look on his face. Chris threw glances at him from time to time, worried his friend would start…

Victor gave a big sigh.

There it was. Chris knew then that he had to intervene. Luckily he knew the perfect conversation topic to raise Victor’s spirits.

“I don’t think I’ve ever asked: how do you imagine your perfect wedding, Victor?” He reclined in his seat and watched the rain fall harder.

A happy smile spread over Victor’s face. He’d really taken to the idea of getting married in a castle and he was eager to describe all the details.

Outside people ran down the street under umbrellas. Some of them held bags over their heads.

But it was warm and dry in the car.

 

_Yuuri and Victor stepped out of the old church, arm in arm, exchanging loving glances. They kissed again as around them a big crowd consisting of their families and all the figure skaters cheered happily._

_Victor turned and tossed the bouquet and a fight broke out over who would catch it. Naturally, it landed in Yuri’s hands._

_It was sunny and warm. Both grooms walked along a white path to a place where tables were already prepared with all the best dishes imaginable. Up ahead a fancy castle dominated the view._

_But out here, in the shade of an old oak tree stood a white grand piano._

_Victor released Yuuri and walked over to the piano in his well-tailored white tuxedo. He sat down and played their song._

“Which is?” Mila interrupted.

“Stammi vicino, obviously,” Victor answered. What other choices were there?

Chris nodded. That was the answer he’d expected.

Yuri rolled his eyes. “Can you actually play piano?” he asked in a tone of voice that tried to suggest how ridiculous he found the whole thing.

“That doesn’t matter,” Victor waved him off. “We get proper musicians to come and play afterwards and I sweep Yuuri away into a dance until sunrise.”

This earned him another eye roll. “Why don’t you just have a wedding on ice?” he asked. No amount of torture would make him admit as much, of course, but he always imagined Yuuri and Victor skating at their wedding.

“Because I want to get married in France,” Victor answered and stopped at a red light.

More people with umbrellas ran across the street.

“You know, _shockingly_ , they have ice rinks in France too,” Yuri pointed out.

The light changed to green and Victor drove on. “I want an outdoor wedding,” he insisted.

“You mean you want a _summer wedding_ ,” Yuri corrected him. “Don’t you think that’s a bad idea? Do you want to know what it will _really_ be like?”

“I already know,” Victor insisted stubbornly.

“Tell us, Yuri,” Mila said, a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

“You and Yuuri are both in white suits,” Yuri began. “You think it’s a good idea to take pictures on the grass, but as soon as you sit down you get green stains all over your pants…”

 

_Victor and Yuuri walked through the grass and their pants turned greener and greener with each step. The air was full of flies and mosquitoes. The guests were constantly complaining of how hot it was._

_Both grooms could feel themselves melting under all their clothes as the sun went on shining mercilessly in the sky._

_Victor, deciding to show off, went up to the piano, but he stared dumbly at the keys, having no idea how to play at all. Or, if he could, he played using only his index finger and it looked as ridiculous as it sounded._

_Something in the field was blooming, making Victor sneeze. He had no idea what it was, but he was allergic to it._

_A mosquito landed on his hand and…_

“Stop!” Victor cut him off. “I don’t want to hear any more!”

Yuri sniggered. “Admit it – I’m right and that’s exactly how it would happen.”

The rain fell harder. Victor gripped the wheel with both hands and looked ready to cry.

“You can always have a winter wedding,” Mila offered, “and skate on a lake, or pond.”

Victor gave a big sigh. “Yeah…” he mumbled noncommittally.

“And still have the castle,” Chris added, watching Victor’s face. “And speaking of castles, we have to turn soon. We’re almost there.”

Victor didn’t say anything, acting as if he was thinking about the road, but Chris could see how much the image Yuri had painted had upset him.

The sky over England was mostly clear and promised nothing but sunshine for the rest of the day.

This time Yuuri was at the wheel. He was used to driving on the left side of the road and was happy to take over and give Georgi some time to rest.

Phichit sat next to him and texted Chris. He said nothing about #papaVictor, deciding that Yuuri didn’t need to know yet.

“I never asked,” Phichit said, “if you’ve thought about your wedding, Yuuri.”

Yuuri blushed. _Only every day_ , he admitted to himself. “A-a bit,” he stammered out.

“Oh? And what kind of wedding do you want to have?” Phichit asked.

The road ahead was suddenly so interesting. He kept his eyes on it, pretending he was very focused as a blush gave him away. Oh, he’d thought about the kind of wedding he wanted to have and he’d had all kinds of fantasies. There was only one version he was willing to tell Phichit, though.

“I thought we could… we could go back to Hasetsu and get married there and maybe go travel together for a month,” Yuuri said.

“Oh, come on, Yuuri!” Phichit exclaimed. “Surely you can do better than that! Don’t you want a fancy wedding?”

“I… uh I don’t really want a fancy wedding,” Yuuri admitted. “I think a quiet wedding will be just fine. It’s easier to plan, after all.”

“And this is the man marrying Victor Nikiforov,” Phichit said to an imaginary audience. “You know he won’t settle for that, right?”

_Don’t I know it!_ Yuuri thought. They’d already argued about this with Victor and neither side won. In fact, they’d come dangerously close to a serious fight over this.

“I think a fancy wedding sounds like a great idea,” Phichit admitted. “You’re getting married to the love of your life, after all, why not celebrate it properly? Especially if it makes him happy.”

Yuuri was silent. He didn’t want to have this argument again.

“Besides,” Phichit added, a note of mischief in his voice, “you can always arrange things so that you get something in return.” He considered this. “I mean apart from a handsome idol as your husband of course.”

Yuuri kept his eyes on the road and did his best not to think about his own plans for the wedding. He just wanted a ceremony somewhere out of the way of everyone else. He didn’t want to attract lots of attention and have the press there. If he could get married on a different planet, he would’ve gladly agreed to that.

Just him and Victor, and their family. And maybe two or three friends…

 

_They were on a deserted island. An official appeared and gave them some papers to sign and then he vanished. It was just them and no one else now._

_There was a little wooden house waiting for them where they retired for the night…_

Yuuri forced himself back into the present. He was driving a car. He had no time to fantasize about a wedding, and _definitely_ not about their wedding night, or how he could surprise Victor with what he had on under his clothes.

“You have that look on your face,” Phichit said.

Yuuri straightened up in his seat. “We’re almost there. Look, the next exit will take us into Wells!” He could feel Phichit’s disbelief and asked, “How is Victor doing?” hoping it would make Phichit stop staring at him.

“Hmm…” Phichit mumbled and pulled out his phone. “They’re at Chambord now. It’s a castle,” he added, knowing that the name wouldn’t mean anything to the people in the car. “Looks like they climbed onto the roof and took some pictures with it.”

“What?” Yuuri panicked. “How did they get up there?”

Phichit chuckled. “They’re fine. It’s safe up there and they have lots of tourists to keep them company, so why don’t you worry about the road instead?”

Yuuri tried not to panic, but Victor had already climbed a roof of a castle once when he wasn’t supposed to, so it didn’t seem too improbable to him that Victor would do so again.

They entered Wells and Phichit entertained everyone with a story about the Wells cathedral with its unique arch.

Yuuri drove into a parking lot and claimed the first empty space he could find. He was about to get out of the car when something caught his eye.

Across the street an old couple stopped on the sidewalk. The man shivered and the woman threw a blanket over his shoulders. He smiled at her in return and she gave a little nod. They took hands and walked on. A dog bounded after them happily.

Yuuri held his breath and watched them as if they were actors in the most fascinating movie in the world.

“Yuuri?” someone called, pulling him back into the present.

He turned at the sound of his name and then turned back, but the couple was gone. It had been such a peaceful image that his mind kept returning to it throughout the day.

In Cheverny, like in Chambord, Victor’s group had lots of tourists to keep them company. So many, in fact, that Victor didn’t even consider the castle as a possible place for a wedding. At least, not _his_ wedding.

It rained harder and they had to run back to the car since no one had packed an umbrella. As soon as they were all safely inside it rained even harder, making it hard to see anything around them, and, so, they sat inside and waited patiently for it to end.

Rain drummed loudly on the roof of the car and no one said a word. Victor thought of a different rainy day back in St. Petersburg

 

_“Yuuri,” he whispered, slipping closer to Yuuri under the blankets._

_They were sitting on the couch, watching TV, as it poured outside. Victor’s arms were wrapped tightly around Yuuri. He hated days like this. Rain always made him sad. He couldn’t explain why, but it did, which was a problem for someone like him who lived in St. Petersburg, which got an unfair amount of rain._

_Yuuri slipped out of the blankets, making Victor protest. “I’ll be back,” he promised, walking towards the kitchen._

_Yuuri returned in a few minutes with two cups of hot chocolate. He joined Victor under the blanket, handing him a steaming cup. “Let’s watch a comedy,” he suggested. “This show is sad.”_

_Victor let Yuuri take care of him, enjoying every moment. He whispered that it was still too cold and, to his great joy, Yuuri let him sit on his lap._

_Yuuri put his arms around Victor and planted a gentle kiss on his cheek. “Are you warmer now?” he asked._

_Victor smiled, remembering how his mother would spoil him when he was small, “A little.”_

_He got a kiss on his other cheek. “How about now?”_

_“Still a little,” he insisted._

_Yuuri pulled him even closer and pressed a warm mouth against Victor’s…_

“Oi! Victor!” Yuri shouted and pushed his shoulder. “Are we going to spend the rest of the day in this stupid parking lot? Drive!”

Victor jumped in his seat, startled by the sound of Yuri’s voice. “Right.” He started the car and pulled out of the spot, trusting Chris to tell him where to drive next.

“Where to next?” Mila asked, doing her best to dry her hair.

“Blois,” Chris answered.

The rain stopped as they got near Blois, but when they arrived in the city it looked as if a small tornado had passed through it: leaves and whole branches lay by the road. The streets were all empty: no one dared to venture out in such weather. But there was no strong wind now and, after checking into the hotel, the four friends set off to explore the city.

Victor walked ahead, missing the warmth of Yuuri’s kisses. Who would keep him warm that night? He’d piled the blankets high the night before and even went and asked for more at reception.

They found a quiet little restaurant for dinner and Victor realized with a pang how much he missed cooking in the kitchen with Yuuri. He missed their long debates over what to cook, how Yuuri would rush out to buy some groceries in a nearby store that was open so late, how they would make a dinner as fast as humanly possible and how when they sat down it was to eat dishes that were somewhere between Russian and Japanese.

This restaurant food was nowhere near as good as Yuuri’s. He fiddled with his fork and ate with very little enthusiasm.

Chris and Mila argued over the drinks menu while Yuri texted away and for a while Victor was left alone in his little world.

If only he could persuade Yuuri to have a fancy wedding, then things would be perfect. He considered asking Chris for advice on how to persuade Yuuri, but changed his mind. He would have to come up with a way himself.

Yuuri’s group, meanwhile, was leaving the city of Bath behind and making for Cardiff. This meant leaving England for a short while to visit Wales.

Yuuri was still at the wheel, following the coast, and thinking about weddings. Maybe he could persuade Victor to have his grand wedding somewhere far away from everyone else. Victor was used to attention, but maybe, just this once, he could live without it.

But no, it was hopeless. If Victor could, he’d have a wedding to rival the royal one. Yuuri remembered watching it several years ago and frowned.

Fancy outfits, a grand carriage and marriage in the main cathedral of the city – that sounded like _exactly_ the kind of wedding Victor would want and the one that Yuuri would’ve preferred to avoid.

He wasn’t sure which of the cathedrals in Russia was considered the main one, but he suspected that Victor would find a way to get married in it, if he set his heart on it.

Remembering the cathedral in Wells, he wondered if that would suit Victor more. Wells was a small city and not too close to London and…

 

_A carriage rolled down the cobblestone streets of Wells and Yuuri and Victor waved out of it. Crowds filled the streets, shouting at them as if they were royalty of some kind._

No, it was no good.

But he _wanted_ to marry Victor. He wanted to spend the rest of their lives together. Yuuri needed it all desperately with every fibre of his being.

He thought about the incentive Phichit had alluded to and considered what he would say to Victor.

 

_“Victor, I have an idea. Let’s have a very quiet wedding and have our honeymoon in Hasetsu, or maybe in a small Russian town. In exchange, I will take you to the store I discovered two weeks ago and wear anything they sell.”_

An image followed that imaginary promise and Yuuri had to pull over.

“Yuuri, are you ok?” Phichit asked.

“Yeah… I just… I need some fresh air,” he said, turned the engine off, undid his seatbelt and stepped out of the car.

He was still by the coast. There were no impressive cliffs here, just big rocks and waves crashing against them.

Yuuri closed his eyes and took in the sea air. The sun was close to setting. They still had a good 50 kilometers to go, but he tried to relax.

_“What do you want me to be to you?”_ the waves seemed to whisper in Victor’s voice.

_My husband,_ Yuuri thought. _My partner through thick and thin, in health and in sickness…_

He raised his right hand and stared down at his ring. Closing his eyes, he pressed it to his lips.

He thought of all the little moments they’d shared, all the little discoveries he’d made about Victor in private.

They were _already_ married. They’d married that evening in Barcelona, in front of that church.

He remembered how his heart trembled back then and how Victor’s hands shook. And then his eyes went soft…

He remembered how his own hands shook when he slipped the glove off Victor’s right hand. Victor stopped wearing gloves after that.

 

_“I’m all yours,” Victor’s eyes said._

_“And so am I,” his own responded._

 

“Yuuri?” Phichit called softly.

He turned and smiled. “Yes?”

“Are you ready to go now?” He noticed the phone in Phichit’s hand, but didn’t say anything.

“I am.”

 

It was getting dark when they arrived in Cardiff. Phichit and Georgi went ahead to do the hotel check in, leaving Yuuri and Otabek waiting in the car.

“You really miss him,” Otabek said after a long silence.

Yuuri raised his eyes from his hand and blushed. “Sorry, I… I don’t always stare at my ring, I promise. I’m just not very good at being apart from him. It was hard during the competitions, but then I was mostly worrying about the skate and… well… I could always call him.”

“Tell Phichit to return your phone,” Otabek suggested.

“No, no, Phichit is right – this is our vacation together. Sorry, I should stop bringing Victor up.” Yuuri put his hand in his pocket, fighting the urge to stare at the ring.

Otabek was silent and Yuuri went on talking, as if Otabek’s silence was drawing words out of him.

“I know it’s very silly and most couples are probably comfortable with being apart. They know they’ll see their significant other again and I know that, _rationally_ … I know that I will see Victor again, but…” Yuuri sighed. “I miss him as if we haven’t seen each other for ten years.”

Otabek gave a nod.

Yuuri smiled. “For some reason I had a feeling that you would understand.” He turned and saw Phichit and Georgi returning. “Please don’t tell Phichit anything I said. He’ll only tease me about this, I just know it.”

“Ok.”

“Thank you.”

 

Victor rolled up into a ball on the bed. He felt awful. He needed Yuuri to be there with him. He needed to hear his dear voice, to feel how warm and comfortable his hug was and…

He pressed his lips against the ring on his finger and closed his eyes.

 

As night claimed Cardiff Yuuri dreamt about yet another wedding. By the oddest of coincidences, Victor had the same dream.

 

_They rode inside a golden carriage, going through a crowd in a big circle with no end in sight._

_“When will we finally get there?” Yuuri asked._

_“Just a little more,” Victor promised._

_But the carriage kept going and going._

_It was night now and the crowds were gone, but still the carriage went round and round._

_“There’s no one out there now,” Yuuri observed._

_Victor reached out to put a hand on Yuuri’s shoulder and only then did he realize that he was in a white dress. He turned away from the window and took Victor’s appearance in. Victor was also wearing a white dress._

Of course _, Yuuri thought, the dream supplying him with nonsense knowledge,_ that’s what everyone wears when they get married.

_He was suddenly very aware of the fact that he had something around his thigh that Victor needed to see._

_But they were still in the carriage, still going round and round, and still not getting married. He was starting to feel like they would be stuck like this forever and never get married._

_They were stuck like this forever._

_Forever…_

Yuuri woke up in a panic.

For a while he lay on the bed with his eyes open, trying to remember where he was. Slowly, it all came back to him.

He had to talk to Victor. He _needed_ to.

Forgetting he was in a hotel and that hotels charged an arm and a leg for using their phones and forgetting that Phichit was sleeping in the same room as him, Yuuri dialled Victor’s number. It was a number he’d memorized long ago just in case.

…Across the English Channel Victor got up, had the same thought and dialled Yuuri.

Both skaters got the same message in the same tone. “The person you are dialling is out of range or has their phone switched off.”

With a sigh Yuuri hung up.

With a sigh Victor hung up.

Both returned to their beds and both did their best to sleep. Just a little longer. Just five more days…

 

The fans, meanwhile, were discussing two new photos: Yuuri pining away by the sea and Victor pining away in a car in the rain.

It didn’t take long for art and memes to appear around both photos. There was no argument about ratings this time. Eleven out of ten, everyone agreed.

People were messaging Chris and Phichit, begging them to reunite the two skaters, but the pleas fell on deaf ears. Not a single one of the messages got a response.

Yuuri pined away in Cardiff. Victor suffered away in Blois.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For more photos see:  
> [Chambord](https://www.flickr.com/photos/115120419@N08/sets/72157657478902622)  
> [Wells](https://www.flickr.com/photos/115120419@N08/sets/72157672277391482)  
> [Cheverny](https://www.flickr.com/photos/115120419@N08/sets/72157657478902592)  
> [Blois](https://www.flickr.com/photos/115120419@N08/sets/72157657478902552)  
> [Bath](https://www.flickr.com/photos/115120419@N08/sets/72157672277391472)


	4. Day Three – The Death of Victor Nikiforov

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A photo as a weapon. – The hero of Russia. – Don’t tell Yuuri. – Weddings with JJ. – A boat ride in Cambridge. – “My dear Yuuri…”

This time Phichit took Yuuri (and, by extension, Georgi and Otabek) shopping in the streets of Cardiff. It didn’t take long for Yuuri to find something for Victor.

Phichit froze as his eye fell on Yuuri Katsuki – for some the most beautiful skater, for others: the hottest – holding a plushy of a red dragon and making puppy eyes.

“What do you think?” Yuuri asked.

Phichit’s answer was to snap a photo right away. There were a lot of favours he could pull out of Victor in exchange for a photo like this. More than that, such a photo was a weapon and had to be used carefully.

“Cute,” he finally said. “Are you getting it for Yuri?”

“I think Victor will appreciate it more,” Yuuri said. “Or… or is that weird?”

“What? No, not at all,” Phichit reassured him.

His mind went on calculating. When was the next time he would go back to Detroit? There was a hockey team full of players all called Chad, or maybe it was Brad (or Thad?) who nursed a giant hopeless crush on a boy named Yuuri Katsuki. They could give Phichit something in exchange for the photo as well. And, because Phichit was a good friend (even if his methods were a bit questionable), he considered what they could give that would benefit both him and Yuuri.

Yuuri meanwhile continued to look too perfect for this imperfect world and the store owner was all too happy to wrap the present up nicely and not charge extra for it.

They walked out with the present, as if it was a trophy of some kind.

They took their time wandering through the streets of Cardiff and then on the grounds of the castle in the middle of the city.

Yuuri walked along the castle walls and listened to Phichit’s story about someone he’d never met.

After the day and the night before when he felt as if he needed Victor to even breathe, he woke up feeling calmer, surprising even himself.

There were only a few days left before the trip was over and he would see Victor again, but he promised himself to enjoy this trip. He owed at least as much to Phichit for organizing it.

And, so, he smiled for photos, listened to church bells strike the hour and enjoyed the gentle sunshine.

They left Cardiff and entered England once more. On the way they stopped for lunch at a place just off the road where a nice lady was more than happy to make everyone a warm and filling meal. She tried to feed them several courses, telling each of them that they were all nothing but skin and bones.

The group sat at a wooden table in an apple orchard and had lunch, followed closely by dessert – a slice of homemade apple pie with a steaming cup of tea.

They took turns telling each other funny stories and when it got to Otabek’s turn they all expected him to back out and not say anything. He surprised them all by telling a story of his own.

 

_They were trying to think of a way to celebrate JJ’s birthday. (This was still back in the time when Otabek trained with JJ, of course.)_

_No one could remember who had suggested it, but the end result was that when JJ entered the training arena on the morning of his birthday the Canadian national anthem started to play. And not just the anthem, but a special version they recorded that started with “Oh, dear JJ” and went downhill from there exactly as you’d expect._

The skaters laughed.

“I suggested,” Otabek said, throwing glances at Yuuri, “that we all get maple leaf costumes and skate around him in a circle.”

“So, wait, did he –”

“He came. It was empty. As soon as he skated out onto the ice the music started to play and we skated out in costumes to go around him.”

Phichit almost fell over with laughter at that image.

“Didn’t you get in trouble?” Yuuri asked, laughing really hard himself.

Otabek gave him a look that could almost be called surprised. Almost. “Why?”

“For the prank?” Yuuri explained, feeling stupid.

“No.”

There was something especially hilarious about someone delivering the story with a deadpan expression on his face and the other three skaters took a long time to calm down.

“We got JJ a costume too,” Otabek added. “I have a photo.”

Yuuri nearly tumbled off the bench. There was no way he didn’t know how hilarious he was! Just no way!

Otabek was on his feet, at Yuuri’s side in an instant, holding him in place.

Yuuri gave him a smile and a soft “thank you”.

Once he was sure that Yuuri wouldn’t fall off, Otabek returned to his spot and went on drinking his tea as if nothing had happened.

For a while they sat in silence.

_I’ve been selfish,_ Yuuri thought with a pang of guilt. _Everyone is so nice to me and is doing their best to enjoy this trip and I just keep thinking about Victor._

Now Yuuri thought about how pleasant the tea was and how much he liked the scent of apples. It was cool in the shade even with the sunlight peeking through the leaves.

Phichit asked the owner of the restaurant to snap a photo of them together and even moved the cups around to get a nicer shot. They moved closer to each other and smiled for the shot. Before anyone could move from their spot Phichit insisted they take a silly photo together, much to the owner’s amusement.

They didn’t rush back to the car and speed down the motorway, but took their time like people who had a lot of it to spare.

Yuuri put some music on and everything felt perfect. All those troubles were left behind and had no hopes of catching up…

 

Victor Nikiforov was dying. This was it – the end of the world (for him, at least) and, what was worse, he didn’t get to hold Yuuri’s hand as he drew his last breath. He complained about this loudly to Chris (and everyone else in the room).

He had a headache and a stomach ache. Everything was terrible. He turned over onto his stomach and buried his head in the pillow.

Chris sat on the bed next to him and talked about seeing a doctor, going on in that annoying way of his.

Victor didn’t want to see a doctor. He knew what he needed. He needed Yuuri to come and look after him. Yuuri always knew how to make him feel better and…

“Ughh!” He bolted for the bathroom.

“Looks like you’ve got food poisoning,” Chris said with no sympathy in his voice whatsoever.

“Why?” Victor wailed in the bathroom. “Why? What did I do to deserve this?”

“Oh, come on, Victor, it’s not that bad!” Chris exclaimed.

Victor washed his face and came out of the bathroom. He dropped onto the bed and pulled blankets over his face. “Just leave me here to die alone.”

Chris put a hand over his mouth to suppress his laughter. _Who will you complain to if I leave?_ he wondered. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and snapped a picture of Victor Nikiforov sulking under a blanket. “Well, I’m off to have breakfast –”

“Ughh!”

“I’ll come back to see how you’re doing in an hour,” Chris promised.

Victor stuck his head under his pillow and made a muffled noise. He listened to Chris walk out of the room and close the door behind him.

He heard Mila ask how Victor was feeling and heard Chris give an unsympathetic answer. Yuri made a sarcastic comment and they headed off for breakfast.

_Some friends you are!_

He tried to sleep, but could only think about the pain and how much he needed Yuuri to be with him already. Everything was terrible, awful, the absolute worst.

 

They returned after breakfast to check up on Victor. Mila sat down on the bed and tried to coax him into having something to eat.

But Victor just turned away from her with a disgusted noise.

Chris sat down on the other side of the bed. Yuri leaned against the wall and texted Otabek. He didn’t mention Victor’s state, merely asked how the other group was doing while throwing glances at Victor.

Victor’s face was very pale. He really wasn’t looking well.

“We need to go,” Chris insisted. “We only booked this room for one night and I already talked to the hotel staff. They said that they have no spare rooms for the next night. We have to go. There’s a hotel room waiting for us in –”

“I’m dying and you’re talking about hotel rooms?” Victor asked in disbelief.

“You’re not –” Chris tried to argue, but Mila raised a hand to silence him.

“Victor really doesn’t look well,” she said.

Both skaters gave Victor a worried look. Chris reached out and felt Victor’s forehead. He was burning up.

Victor had an odd expression on his face. “Tell Yuuri that I love him,” he whispered. “I wish I could’ve seen his beautiful face one last time.” He closed his eyes and waved his right arm in the air, the ring on his finger catching the light. “All my worldly possessions go to him, of course.”

Mila gave Chris a look of alarm. Yuri opened his mouth to make a sarcastic remark, but Victor kept going.

“Tell him to buy a new suit for my funeral,” Victor said in a dying voice. “He’ll be wearing that ugly old one over my dead body!”

A long embarrassed silence followed those words.

Then all the skaters started talking at once.

“You’re not dying, Victor,” Mila insisted. “You’ll get better, you’ll see!”

“I’ll go talk to the hotel staff again. Maybe they’ll let us stay longer,” Chris said.

Yuri rolled his eyes. “Stop overreacting! It’s just a bit of food poisoning! You’ll be fine in a few hours, you drama queen!”

Victor’s face spread in an odd smile as his head reclined on the pillow. “I love you all.”

Now Chris was really alarmed. He caught Mila’s eye and nodded at the door. The two of them slipped out together and had a whispered conversation outside Victor’s room the end result of which was that Chris left to talk to the hotel staff to find out where he could find a doctor. This time Chris descended onto the hotel staff like the wrath of god.

“Listen,” he told them, lowering his voice, “I didn’t want to say this, but my friend is…” He actually hated playing this card, but he had no other choice, “…a big hero in his country (in Russia, that is) and you don’t exactly want it to become publicly known that you threw the hero of Russia out of your hotel when he was ill, do you?”

They gave him terrified looks.

“Good, I can see we understand each other wonderfully,” Chris said, regaining some of his usual composure. “Now, I need to know where I can find a doctor. I don’t think it’s serious,” _and I’m sure he’s over reacting (mostly sure, anyway),_ “but I want a doctor to see him, just in case.”

They scrambled around for a phone number. One of them ran off to find a phone while the other person at reception leaned forward and whispered, “Hero of Russia?”

Chris nodded. “Victor Nikiforov,” he whispered in an even quieter tone of voice and then threw a look around him. He leaned in closer and added, “but I’d appreciate it, if you didn’t tell anyone.”

(Only two days later one of them accidentally dropped the name in front of a skating fan and found out just _who_ they nearly kicked out of their hotel. Naturally, as a way of compensating for everything they’d done, they renamed the room where he’d stayed the “Victor Nikiforov Suite” and raised the prices of all the rooms in the hotel that Victor Nikiforov himself had stayed at.)

Chris managed to arrange everything in such a way that the hotel paid for their stay for another night and the doctor’s visit. He spent the rest of the day on the phone, trying to sort out the next few hotels, leaving Mila and Yuri to deal with the doctor and the poor patient.

 

Mila watched the doctor question Victor. They spoke French, but even Mila could tell that Victor spoke to the doctor, convinced he was talking to Yuuri.

He was getting really delirious now. The doctor studied him thoroughly, wrote out a prescription and assured Mila in broken English that Victor would be fine the next morning before leaving the room with a smile.

“Yuuri…” Victor whispered, “Yuuri, don’t leave me, please.”

Mila sat down on the bed next to him and wiped Victor’s forehead with a damp cloth.

“What did the doctor say?” Chris asked, coming into the room and throwing a quick glance at Yuri sulking in a corner.

“He’ll be fine tomorrow morning,” Mila told him and tried to smile. She threw a worried look at Victor. His face was starting to look a little green. “…I hope,” she added softly.

“I talked to Phichit,” Chris whispered, “we decided not to tell Yuuri anything.”

“Why not?” Mila asked and even Yuri gave Chris a surprised look.

“Because…” Chris lowered his voice further. Mila and Yuri leaned closer to hear him better, “…because we don’t want to worry him. He’s enjoying his vacation right now. If Victor feels worse tomorrow, then we’ll tell him.”

Mila nodded to show she agreed. Yuri rolled his eyes and turned away.

There was a long day ahead of them.

The weather only got nicer after that. Yuuri’s group arrived at Blenheim Palace with the sun shining over the road. They got out of the car and lined up to buy tickets. The Palace stood among vast, rolling hills of grass and acres of forests. The sheer amount of land was impressive, as if inviting visitors to ride a horse as fast as they could to see where the property ended.

The friends circled the Palace to find an amateur jousting tournament. Actors dressed up in bright costumes and shouted at the top of their voices as they charged on horseback with lances in their hands.

One of the actors went up before the audience and shouted about how great he was. His arrogance reminded Yuuri a bit of Jean-Jacques Leroy, the Canadian figure skater who was also considered among the top ten skaters in the world. Although, to be fair to him, he was less arrogant at The Four Continents Championship and definitely not so arrogant at Worlds.

 

_There was another group still to go before them. After the short program, Yuuri and Jean-Jacques were a mere half a point apart from each other and Seung Gil Lee was close behind them in third._

_Yuuri sat in the change room and worried. Victor was off in Europe, resting after his victory in the European Championships. His flight back was in – Yuuri glanced at his phone – five hours and he was sleeping now. Yuuri had insisted that Victor rest and not call him. He would be fine, Yuuri had said._

_Now he felt anything_ but _fine._

_Jean-Jacques was in the change room with him, listening to music._

_A screen on the wall showed the next skater go out on the ice, but Yuuri couldn’t watch._

_He shouldn’t have argued. He should’ve let Victor call him and let him calm Yuuri down. He shouldn’t have decided that he could go out there alone._

_Victor had asked Celestino to look after Yuuri while he was there, but Yuuri only said he’d accepted that. In reality, he did his best to avoid his old coach. It was too awkward now and Yuuri preferred to manage without a coach this time._

_He sighed and lowered his head onto his hands._ I just want this to be over. I just want to go home to St. Petersburg and…

_“It’s really not fair, is it?” Jean-Jacques said and Yuuri raised his head to find the skater standing over him._

_Yuuri had already dealt with everyone from Victor, to Phichit, to the press trying to persuade him that the ISU had scheduled the European and the Four Continents Championships at the same time to get at him and Victor. He was so tired of this argument. Did he have to talk to figure skaters he barely knew about this too?_

_“What is?” Yuuri asked and braced himself._

_“That we can’t sit out there with the audience,” JJ answered. “It’s like punishment for winning. You got the most points: now you have to sit here and wait forever until your turn. It’s almost as bad as getting stuck in traffic!”_

_A faint smile tugged at the corners of Yuuri’s mouth. “I thought going last was supposed to give you an advantage.”_

_“Is it? What kind of advantage is it to sit for two hours and worry about how your skate will go? I’d rather go out there first and get it over with.”_

_Yuuri considered this. “Yeah…”_

_“My fiancé is waiting for me. I could be sitting with her right now and cheering for everyone else.”_

_At the word “fiancé” Yuuri lowered his eyes and stared at his ring. “Yeah…”_

_“Sorry about your wedding,” JJ said._

_“Oh! It’s not your fault!” Yuuri exclaimed, blushing. It really, really wasn’t._

_JJ smiled. “’Bell and I were making plans for ours. Do you know what you want to do yet?”_

_“Not really.” Which didn’t stop them arguing about it with Victor, of course._

_Ten minutes later when they came to collect the last group they found JJ telling Yuuri about all the wedding locations he and Isabella had visited and about the arguments they had each time._

_“What? No way!” Yuuri exclaimed._

_“Excuse me, if you would please make your way to the ice rink,” a man said to them._

_Yuuri turned around. Competition. Right. “You need to tell me what you picked in the end,” he insisted and blushed a little at his own tone of voice. “I… I mean if you don’t mind…”_

_JJ laughed. “Of course! Although I might as well spoil it now and say – we didn’t pick anything!”_

_“What?”_

_“I’ll tell you later,” JJ promised._

“What are you thinking about, Yuuri?” Phichit asked.

“Oh, that’s easy,” Georgi exclaimed. “He’s imagining himself as a knight on horseback, fighting for Victor’s favour!”

Yuuri looked around himself, saw the Palace and the people dressed as knights and remembered where he was. “I was… I was remembering the Four Continents,” he confessed.

 As they walked back to the Palace Yuuri told them about his conversation with JJ.

“Yuuri!” Phichit exclaimed. “Are you telling me JJ will be your wedding planner?”

He blushed. “Well, no, I… I just… We were just… exchanging tips and… advice and…” he went silent. What else could he say? How could he explain how nice it was to find someone who understood his very specific troubles? How good it felt to really relate to someone?

He remembered with a pang of guilt that he’d promised to talk to JJ about weddings again and never got the chance.

There was an odd look on Phichit’s face. Yuuri wasn’t sure what it meant and was too scared to ask.

Blenheim Palace was a grand place that deserved lots of attention. It was just a shame that the skaters were too caught up in their conversation to appreciate the fancy interiors, the vast halls and all of the items that were in some way related to Churchill out on display. They passed through all the rooms, barely giving the furniture a glance, completely missing the man taking pictures of every single plate on one of the tables, and walked out with the vague feeling that they’d visited an important palace.

Their next destination was Cambridge, the old university town on the Cam River.

It wasn’t a long drive there from the Palace and the sun was still up in the sky when they arrived.

Cambridge was full of little streets begging to be photographed and intricate architecture. It was hard to believe that real people studied here. It was far easier to believe that movies were filmed here and photos were taken for various magazines. In short, it charmed them greatly.

Phichit took photos of everyone, of course. How could he not? It was too good a chance to pass up.

Yuuri fought terrifying flashbacks of exams and assignments done the night before.

“Let’s take a boat ride!” Georgi suggested.

There was some debate before everyone agreed and they followed the river to the place where boats waited to take people on a ride.

The four of them piled into one boat and it sailed away, gliding over the water’s surface. A single man stood with an oar, pushing them onwards.

Yuuri sighed and leaned on one arm, reaching out with the other to hold it just over the water’s surface.

 

_Cherry blossom petals rained down onto the water below. The river carried them all away on its slow current._

_Victor sat down next to Yuuri and put his arms around him._

_Yuuri turned and caught a kiss with his lips…_

Maybe they could get married in Venice, Yuuri thought.

Phichit watched Yuuri’s eyes stare unseeingly down at the water. Next to him, Georgi said something about true love, but Phichit silenced him.

Did Victor know how deeply in love Yuuri was? If so, then what was it like to be _so_ loved? To know that someone feels so strongly for you?

Phichit often wrote love off as that sappy thing that happened in movies. There were crushes, of course. There was wanting, as in someone _wanting_ someone else in their bed, but love…

And then along came Yuuri and Victor and suddenly everyone else’s feelings became small and a little silly. Suddenly if someone else said “I love you” Phichit mentally translated it as “I like you; kind of”.

Here it was – love, the kind that poets wrote about (and probably never actually felt). When you were near either of them you felt it in the air. You wanted to sing and do stupid romantic things. You wanted to serenade someone in the moonlight, to fight a terrible monster. The sky was brighter and birds were suddenly singing. Even indoors.

Phichit shook his head. All this madness was catching: he was starting to feel like a poet himself. Or, if not a poet, then like Georgi for sure.

Georgi gave a happy sigh.

But, if Phichit was honest with himself, there was something reassuring about Yuuri and Victor’s love. When things went badly and he felt disillusioned with humanity, looking at them gave him hope. They served as a little reminder that not all was lost.

He snapped a photo of Yuuri and posted it. This one was a winner and no matter what photos of Victor were posted afterwards, none of them could compete with the shot of Yuuri reclined in a boat and staring wistfully at the river below with an expression of deep love on his face.

The boat ride ended and Phichit opened his mouth to suggest they go again, but Yuuri raised his head and gave a long sigh.

“That was very nice,” he said as if his friends had done the rowing. “Thank you.”

Otabek jumped off the boat and held out his hands to help Yuuri. Phichit nearly fell into the river, trying to snap a shot of them together and Georgi had to catch him before the boat turned over.

They laughed about it afterwards as they headed for their hotel. Phichit dropped that second image on the unprepared fans and, just as he smiled in anticipation of all the comments he would get, his phone ran out of charge.

It was fine. There wouldn’t be anything else to take pictures of. He was mostly sure. It was under control. Everything was ok. It wasn’t the end of the world.

Panic filled his stomach, making him feel queasy.

He still had _Yuuri’s_ phone, he remembered and wondered how Yuuri remained so calm without any way to contact Victor. It was starting to frighten him that Yuuri wasn’t asking about Victor at all.

 

Night crept in. The skaters went to their rooms (once again they were two to a room), thinking of the beds and dreams that awaited them.

Yuuri was getting his toothbrush when he straightened up and looked at Phichit. “What?”

“What?” Phichit repeated in return, feeling foolish.

“Sorry, I just… I thought I heard you call my name,” Yuuri said. “Didn’t you call me?”

“No,” Phichit said and shook his head.

Yuuri walked to the bathroom and froze in the doorway. “There it is again,” he said softly. “Don’t you hear it?”

“No.” Phichit wondered if Yuuri was losing it, or if he’d gone deaf. He held his breath and listened carefully. He even walked over to Yuuri’s side of the room and listened again. “I don’t hear it,” he whispered.

“Must be my imagination, then,” Yuuri said.

They stared at each other, trying not to make a single sound as they listened.

“That’s so odd,” Yuuri said after a while, when no call came. “For a second I thought…” He blushed and turned away to hide his face. “I thought I heard Victor calling me.” He fidgeted in embarrassment. “I guess I’m just used to hearing him call me all the time. A-anyway, I’ll just go… brush my teeth.” He closed the bathroom door behind him.

Phichit stared at the door, feeling like the worst friend in the world.

_Tomorrow,_ he promised himself. _If Victor isn’t better tomorrow, then I’ll tell you about him. I really will. I promise._

 

Victor lay on his bed with his eyes open, but he couldn’t see what or who was in the room. “Yuuri…” he called. “My dear Yuuri…”

Someone gently wiped his brow and then shifted the pillow a little. Someone brought more blankets and put them over Victor, wrapping him in them.

But he didn’t notice any of that: he was still calling for his fiancé, forgetting that he was several hundred kilometers away, in another country. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More photos:  
> [Cardiff](https://www.flickr.com/photos/115120419@N08/sets/72157672277391462)  
> [Blenheim Palace](https://www.flickr.com/photos/115120419@N08/sets/72157673266869356)  
> [Cambridge](https://www.flickr.com/photos/115120419@N08/sets/72157673266869326)


	5. Day Four – Call Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A mysterious happiness. – Having fun while others are dying. – What someone can or cannot buy. – Who missed who the most. – My best friend the fire hydrant.

Morning dawned, bright and happy. The sun rose, promising a wonderful day with no hint that rain even existed. The clouds left, obviously having something much more important to do somewhere else.

Victor Nikiforov woke up, turned over and smiled, hearing birds singing just outside his window. Everything was great again. Really wonderful. He stretched and sat up. All of yesterday’s troubles and pains were gone. He wasn’t dead or dying. He felt light and full of energy, ready to tackle a hundred castles, to conquer them, if necessary.

Besides, he thought, another day went by, bringing him closer to a reunion with his dear Yuuri.

Only then did he notice that he wasn’t alone in his room and that Yuri lay on the floor, fast asleep. He smiled and moved to get out of bed. Chris lay on the floor there, also in a deep sleep. Victor tried to slip off the front of the bed and found where Mila had passed out.

His grin was from ear to ear now. He slipped carefully off the bed between his friends and tiptoed to the bathroom.

It really was very kind of them to look after him like this!

Victor took a shower and brushed his teeth. Then he went down and had breakfast, taking his time and ending with a cup of coffee.

When he returned to his room they were still all asleep.

Victor snuck up to Chris, found the key card to his room and then tiptoed away to get his phone back.

 

Yuuri woke up feeling happy. He wasn’t sure why he was so happy. The feeling was so intense that he spent what felt like an eternity trying to figure out why he had it.

He hadn’t won anything recently and he was still not married to Victor. That seemed to cover most of it. What else could it possibly be?

On the next bed over Phichit turned onto his side and went on sleeping.

Acting more on instinct than anything else, Yuuri set off to find his phone. He didn’t like going through someone else’s things, especially not when that someone else was his closest friend, but he had the sudden urge to find his phone. It was very important that he have it right now.

As soon as Yuuri found it, he slipped into the bathroom, locking the door behind him. The phone rang the instant the lock clicked.

“Yuuri?”

“Victor!” he exclaimed.

There was a long silence filled with all the joy every human being in the world has ever felt.

“I miss you,” Victor finally said.

Yuuri’s mouth said the same words at the same time without him even stopping to think.

“Kiss me,” Victor finally said.

Yuuri closed his eyes and made a kissing sound.

Victor made one in return. “I want to see you again. Not in photos, but in person. I want you to be right here, or… or for me to be over there.”

“Me too.”

“Yuuri, I was thinking…” Victor gave a sigh, “…about the wedding…”

“Yes?” His voice shook and his heart beat fast.

“…you know, imagining it…”

Yuuri closed his eyes and pictured Victor’s face as he spoke. “Yes.”

“Do you ever imagine us getting married?”

“Yes…”

“…saying our vows…”

“Yes…”

“Having that first dance…” Victor whispered.

“…and every dance after it,” Yuuri added.

Now it was Victor’s turn to whisper, “yes…”

They were silent for a long time afterwards. After all, they didn’t need to add anything to that: they understood each other perfectly.

“I’ll call you tonight,” Yuuri promised, deciding to keep his phone and not tell Phichit about it. “Will you wait for my call?”

“Forever, if I have to,” Victor replied.

“Just a little longer…”

“Just a little longer,” he repeated.

It was so hard to tear himself away from the phone call and end it there, but he had to. He _had_ to.

He hung up, wondering _why_ he had to.

Remembering what he needed to do, he stuck his head out of the bathroom, spotted Phichit still asleep on the bed and tiptoed across the room to hide his phone among his own things. Would Phichit notice it was gone? He hoped not.

 

Across the English Channel Victor was doing the same thing.

He returned to his bedroom, slipped Chris’ key card back into his pocket and called out, “Rise and shine everyone! Are you planning to sleep the whole day away? We have castles to see and cities to visit!”

“Wha…?” Yuri turned over, swore and stormed out to his room.

Victor smiled innocently and woke the other two skaters up.

“A-are…? You’re awake…” Chris almost said “alive”. Almost.

“And feeling better!” He caught Chris before he could leave. “Any news from Yuuri?” he asked as if he hadn’t spoken to Yuuri in decades.

“Uh…” Chris fished out his phone. “He seems to be doing well,” he said.

Victor snatched Chris’ phone out of his hand and stared longingly at a photo of Yuuri taking a boat ride in Cambridge. “He had fun while I was dying?” Victor exclaimed.

“We didn’t tell him anything,” Chris admitted. “As far as he knew everything was fine here.” He paused and gave Victor a sly smile. “Should I have called your fiancé and told him you were dying when you were just suffering from a little food poisoning?”

Victor gave a happy sigh. “Oh Yuuri…” he whispered and Chris knew he wouldn’t get an answer to his question. It was a good thing it was a rhetorical one anyway.

“I need to go brush my teeth,” Chris told him. “You can hang on to that for now.”

This pleased Victor greatly. He studied every new photo Phichit had posted while his group got ready and had a quick breakfast. Then he saved them all to his own phone to study later.

_I want these framed,_ he decided. _And printed out really big so I can hang them in our apartment._

Finally, when everyone got in the car and was ready to go Victor asked the big question, “Where are we going today?”

He never asked about the hotel, or how Chris sorted out the room fiasco. That didn’t matter. After all, he _did_ sort it out, right? So it was all behind them now.

“Amboise,” Chris answered, “and then Chenonceau.”

The road (or, to be more precise: the GPS) took them along the Loire River, past small towns, fields and vineyards onwards to the west. It was a very picturesque and very peaceful route.

Victor turned on the radio and a French singer asked his lover to take him away to the ends of the Earth.

They entered Amboise with its castle on the hill and Victor parked the car in the first available spot, eager to go out and explore. He rushed on ahead, not waiting for the others to catch up.

The main street of Amboise was full of merchants selling their goods in little stalls. Everything from fresh fruit to garlic was on display here. Everyone wanted the four skaters to buy their goods, assuring them that they absolutely had to.

They spent some time picking out what they wanted before making for the chateau itself.

This time Victor didn’t have any fantasies about weddings. He’d heard the name Chenonceau before and knew that a more impressive place was waiting for them.

He walked around the Amboise Chateau, gazing out from the walls and down at the roofs of the town below, and congratulated himself on finding a way to speak with Yuuri. All he needed now was to wait for the evening. But, as impatient as ever, he snatched the odd moment alone here and there to send Yuuri little messages with hearts at the end.

The group entered the castle itself. As Victor passed from room to room he wondered what Yuuri was doing now. Would he have liked it here? That throne over there, would he have found it interesting? Would he have posed with it for Victor to take a picture of him?

The other Yuri marched over to the throne and dropped into it for a selfie and an old man ran in to yell at him to get off. Yuri jumped off and walked away as if he hadn’t done anything wrong, reminding Victor of a cat.

The castle wasn’t big and neither were its grounds, so it didn’t take the group long to see everything it had to offer. The exit from the castle took them out onto the other side and past a passage under the castle itself where people gathered, offering a taste of local wines and cheeses.

Despite Yuri’s very loud protests, the group made straight for the passage where Mila, Chris and Victor enjoyed every wine that was offered to them and then bought a bottle each, anticipating how they will enjoy theirs with someone else.

Yuri rolled his eyes. What did he care what kind of wine Yuuri, Sara or Chris’ boyfriend liked? Worse still, the three of them were annoyingly happy afterwards.

“Yuri,” Mila called, dragging out her voice in that annoying way of hers. “Cheer up!” She poked his cheek and then tried to stretch his face into a smile. “Victor is feeling better, so you don’t need to sulk.”

“I wasn’t sulking about that!” Yuri exclaimed, swinging his arm around and punching her in the stomach, but it didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest.

“Yuri is such a good son,” Mila said in a sing-song voice. “He spent half the night looking after you, Victor.”

There was a chorus of “awws!” followed by another one of “ows!” as Yuri kicked and punched.

They were in the parking lot now. All three skaters stopped to get their laughter out of their systems.

Finally Victor unlocked the car. “Let’s go,” he said.

Yuri opened his mouth to ask if driving after all that wine was a good idea, but something about Victor’s expression suggested that he was completely sober. Yuri climbed into the back seat, hoping he would make it through the day.

To Yuri’s great horror, when Victor pulled over for gas he returned with ice cream and chocolate bars for Yuri, as if he really _was_ his son. Yuri wondered if the world had gone mad.

_I should’ve never agreed to come,_ he thought as they drove on to Chenonceau. _I should’ve gone on my own trip with Beka. We could’ve gone somewhere far away like Almaty._

But he took the chocolate and ice cream anyway. He wasn’t stupid enough to turn down free treats.

The radio filled the car with French love songs, making Yuri roll his eyes.

 

Chenonceau was a very popular tourist destination. The crowds poured in around and into the castle. Tour groups marched boldly on. Families walked in, the parents keeping an eye on their children.

This time Victor wasn’t disappointed. This chateau had everything he wanted, including being an impressive feature of architecture. It spread beautifully over the Cher River with arches at the bottom for boats to pass through. Victor’s breath caught in his throat.

“I need to take Yuuri here!” he announced and reached for his phone.

He remembered just in time that Chris would see and take his phone away and waited for his chance to sneak a photo of the place.

They could take a boat ride here, he thought, go under one of the arches and…

 

_Yuuri stared thoughtfully down at the water. There was that tender look in his eyes again._

_Victor sat opposite him, his eyes fixed on Yuuri and his mouth slightly open._

_They were in white tuxedoes. The boat was full of flowers. An orchestra played music on the shore and the wedding guests watched in silence._

_The boat reached one of the shores. Victor jumped off and reached out to help Yuuri get off._

_Yuuri rewarded him with a loving look and a gentle squeeze of his hands. He led Victor to a wooden gazebo overgrown with grapevines._

_Someone brought a white veil and threw it over both of them…_

“Oi!” Yuri elbowed Victor.

Victor jumped and gave Yuri a startled look. “What?”

“Come on, you idiot, stop daydreaming!” He turned away and stormed off into the crowd.

“I wasn’t… I was just…” Victor protested, chasing after him. “I was just imagining what it would be like to take Yuuri here and take a boat ride and…”

Yuri turned and gave him a look. “I don’t want to know.”

But Victor went on as if he hadn’t said anything. “Maybe that’s the wedding we should have. We can go down the river in a boat and –”

“And as you make out the boat turns over, dropping both of you into the water where you drown,” Yuri cut in. “Yeah, whatever. Look, I _don’t care_.”

As they made their way through the dense crowd Victor wondered who he would have to ask for permission to marry Yuuri here.

He entered the chateau and knew immediately that he absolutely had to find a way. There was no other place he wanted to get married in.

Yuuri’s group, meanwhile, left Cambridge and made for Waddesdon Manor – a place Victor himself would’ve appreciated. Phichit pointed this out and they had a lot of fun imagining Count Victor, master of such a grand estate.

“And, of course, he would do his best to win the heart of Count Yuuri,” Georgi added, enjoying all this a little too much, in Yuuri’s opinion.

Count Yuuri blushed deeply. “Really, you… I… I just…”

“His Excellency has no wish to dance tonight?” Georgi exclaimed. “Is His Excellency feeling unwell?”

“I…”

Phichit stepped up to Yuuri, put a finger to his mouth like Victor often did and tilted his head to the side. “My dear Count,” he said in a passable imitation of Victor’s voice, “have I displeased you in some way that you punish me with such cold and cruel treatment?”

“Don’t lose hope, Count!” Georgi exclaimed, both hands on his heart. “You must fight to win fair Yuuri’s affections.”

Fair Yuuri wished he could disappear and seriously considered running for the door.

Finally, when the castle ran out of rooms and halls to show them, when Phichit and Georgi got tired of exclaiming “and this is where they ate their first meal together” or “this is where they spent their first night together”, they descended to the wine cellar.

“Now we know how His Excellency passes the time when Count Yuuri gives him the cold shoulder,” Phichit said with a laugh.

Yuuri had nothing to say to that. The memory of two banquets’ worth of photos dropped on him unannounced like an uninvited guest.

They walked out to the grounds that surrounded the Manor. Well-tended lawns filled the landscape, but Yuuri’s mind returned to thoughts about the banquet and, from there, it leapt to thoughts about the following season.

He’d be competing against Victor again. It meant that keeping his promise to win gold and marry Victor would be harder this season. Would they schedule competitions around the same time again or would he get to watch his coach and fiancé compete? Fiancé, and, hopefully soon, husband?

Excitement and worry filled his stomach, turning his insides over. He felt himself panic as a million terrible “what if” scenarios filled his head. He had to think about something else. When he worried like this Victor always found a way to distract him.

He looked to see what his friends were doing and found Phichit and Georgi arguing over which of Jane Austen’s novels was the best. Otabek was silent as always.

Remembering how attentive he’d been, Yuuri talked to him about figure skating, asking Otabek questions about his career.

Otabek gave his usual brief and precise answers. Yuri’s name crept into the conversation and the figure skater complimented his friend. For some reason, Yuuri felt flattered and praised Yuri as well.

 

Phichit cut off mid-argument and turned to listen to Yuuri boast about Yuri to Otabek. He smiled and shook his head.

_Barely married and already they have a son they’re trying to set up with someone,_ he thought and then texted this observation to Chris.

The second father, meanwhile, was taking in the interior of Chenonceau. “I like it!” he exclaimed as if he was about to add, “I’ll take it! How much are you asking for it?”

Chris chuckled.

Mila posed in the long corridor that stretched across the river and Yuri took a photo of her, wishing to leave already.

“Who do I talk to about weddings here?” Victor asked, looking around himself like someone waiting for the right person to magically appear out of thin air.

“Hold your horses,” Chris said. “are you sure about this? We still have more castles to visit.”

“Of course I’m sure!” Victor exclaimed.

Despite all of Chris’ protests, he turned around, deciding he’d seen enough and made for the ticket booth.

 

Thirty minutes of confused conversation passed. Victor thoroughly terrified the staff who first thought he wanted to buy the castle (which they told him was completely impossible) and then decided he was asking for permission for wedding photography, before they realized he wanted to rent the castle and its grounds for a wedding.

Another half hour passed of mad activity while the staff scrambled around, looking for someone in a position high enough to answer this difficult question. Meanwhile a large group of people gathered around them, wishing to look at the man who wanted to rent Chenonceau itself for his wedding.

“It’s Victor Nikiforov!” someone gasped out and a whisper rippled through the crowd.

“Victor Nikiforov! Victor Nikiforov!”

Chris chuckled at the sight of Victor raising his head proudly.

“Victor, we love you!” a fan screamed out.

He turned and gave the crowd a big wave. They screamed and cheered loudly. He winked and several people fainted.

Somewhere off to the side Mila recorded everything with an expression of pure delight on her face. Yuri, meanwhile, spotted a cat and walked off, deciding it was better company than the other skaters.

Finally an elderly gentleman arrived and announced in slow French, repeating himself several times, that he was very sorry, but what monsieur was asking for was absolutely impossible.

Victor sulked back to his car and then sulked all the way to Saumur.

He was the unhappiest man alive.

 

The chateau in Saumur was closed for repairs and all the friends could do was walk up to it, admire its exterior, take a picture and leave.

The hills just outside Saumur were covered in well-organized vineyards. Victor threw a glance at one out the window as he circled the castle. He had a strong suspicion he knew what was going to happen next.

“Will we go try more wine?” he asked.

“Oh, come on! How much more do you need?” Yuri demanded from the back.

“Of course!” Chris said. “I will take you on a little trip down to wine cellars that stretch under Saumur itself and then we’ll find out if this city has anything else apart from wine.”

Yuri sank into his seat. He had a bad feeling about all of this.

 

Two hours later when three figure skaters were out on the loose in the bars of Saumur Yuri’s bad feeling was completely justified. He locked himself away in his room and refused to come out. He called Otabek, but his friend promised to call him back later.

Yuri dropped onto his bed with a swearword.

 

“Let’s go bar hopping,” Chris said once everyone checked into their rooms. Victor tried to protest, he really did, but Chris had a good argument: “Don’t you want to find good places to take Yuuri?”

They started off at a nice place that played dance music and tried drinks with strange names that Victor and Chris tried to translate to Mila, but she cut them off and ordered the first three on the menu. They took one each and downed the contents in one gulp.

Then she ordered the next three. And the next three. And so on until they reached the end of the menu. Then she rose with a giggle and announced loudly that she was off to the next bar down the street.

Victor fumbled for his credit card and paid the bill as Chris walked out.

At the next bar they did the same thing.

Mila got very friendly with everyone in the bar, wishing to know everyone’s name and then trying to come up with a song for each name she heard. This time she was sure that all of the drinks on the menu were hilarious and didn’t need any translation because she “was’nna stu-upid-pid”.

This made perfect sense to Victor and Chris, so neither of them even wasted their time arguing. Why waste time that could be used better for drinking?

Two more bars passed by in a haze that just kept getting hazier and hazier.

And then it was almost midnight and Victor was lying on a floor somewhere with no idea where Mila or Chris were. He reached into his pocket and pulled his phone out.

A single thought passed through the mists in his mind, trying to push them aside. _Yuuri!_

With a giggle, he texted Yuuri.

_Ii mmmijsss uuoy_

The response came almost right away.

_Mree too_

_Ii_ _kliss you,_ Victor texted.

Yuuri responded with something similar.

After five minutes they were texting each other very clever little messages like “ _your eyes_ ” and “ _kisss kisssss_ ”. The texts started to look more and more like someone had dropped their head on a keyboard and hit send. And just as the conversation got philosophical, autocorrect swept in to save the day, or possibly ruin it.

_Eye mister macchiato_

_Windows song_

There was no rhyme or reason to the words autocorrect picked out and Victor played along by picking random words and sending them back.

Finally the phone rang in his hand. It took him three tries to figure out how to answer it before he heard dear Yuuri’s voice.

“Victor,” Yuuri called out as the phone fell out of Victor’s hand and hit him on the face.

He searched on his face for his phone, trying to talk at the same time. “Mrhmbmh, Yuuri…” It wasn’t easy to grab his phone and pick it up without dropping it again and it fell down to hit him several times. Why was it so hard to hold his phone to his ear?

“Vi-ku-tu-ru…” Yuuri whispered. It sounded like he was whispering “Victory”.

“Yu-uri!” Victor giggled. “I miss you, Yuuri!” he said in return, dragging out all the sounds.

“I miss you too!”

Victor went on laughing. “I miss you more.”

“No, I miss you more!”

“No, I do! And I love you more!” Victor exclaimed. He turned over and dropped his phone again and had to scramble to be able to pick it up.

The argument continued back and forth like this for at least an hour before they both passed out, making alcohol the winner by default.

 

Like Victor, Yuuri had argued against going out for drinks, but Phichit talked him round. They barely made it halfway down one of the streets in Oxford before they ended up going separate ways.

Phichit stayed behind in one of the bars, suddenly struck by how important it was to take a picture of everything. His Instagram account filled very quickly with photos of tables, chairs, the fan on the ceiling, someone’s dirty napkin and the carpet from up close. The last photo was of what was probably a fire hydrant (it was too blurry to be really sure) with the caption “my best friend Yuuri”.

Georgi made friends with one of the girls in the first bar and took her somewhere else. They never found out how his evening went. The next morning he was his usual self and wouldn’t say anything about where he’d been or what he’d done.

Otabek followed Yuuri down the street. He made sure Yuuri got a comfortable place to sit in when he drank and watched the drink take hold of him.

Yuuri jumped up and grabbed the bartender’s hand. “Dance with me!” he ordered and dragged the poor man out onto the dancefloor.

The bartender didn’t last long and Yuuri invited everyone else in the bar one by one. The last person he picked was Otabek who led him very gently out onto the street and onwards in the direction of his hotel. He helped Yuuri into his hotel room and lay him down onto his bed, despite Yuuri’s best efforts to dance with him.

Otabek had dealt with very drunk people before, which was why after he put Yuuri down he went around the room, made sure that the windows could barely open before walking out and closing the door. He waited for some time outside, hoping that Yuuri would fall asleep soon.

But Yuuri didn’t sleep. He had Victor to text and talk to. And to argue with.

 

Skating fans watched in amazement as Phichit’s Instagram filled with odd photos.

“Victor Nikiforov wants to buy Chateau de Chenonceau!” articles claimed. “And turn it into a wedding venue!” One article claimed that every chateau Victor had visited in that trip already belonged to him.

Just what _was_ going on? What were they up to? What did it all mean?

And, as always, Phichit’s photos started a meme. People posted photos of random objects and captioned them as photos of their best friends. That’s not to mention all the captions that Phichit’s photos got.

Whatever madness was happening, it was spreading…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More photos:  
> [Amboise](https://www.flickr.com/photos/115120419@N08/sets/72157657478902542)  
> [Chenonceau](https://www.flickr.com/photos/115120419@N08/sets/72157657478902512)  
> [Waddesdon Manor](https://www.flickr.com/photos/115120419@N08/sets/72157673266869346)  
> [Oxford](https://www.flickr.com/photos/115120419@N08/sets/72157673266869376)


	6. Day Five – Be Careful What you Wish For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A room with a ceiling. – The hunt for the living legend. – Killing the living legend’s fiancé. – A fairy tale wedding. – Otabek’s unexpected request. – A horse pub. – Victor Nikiforov sulks.

Yuri got up and brushed his teeth, glaring at his reflection. Yesterday was finally over. More than that: it never happened. Everything was fine.

He got dressed and went down to have breakfast at the hotel. None of his friends came down to join him. He rolled his eyes. Of course they didn’t.

He delayed as long as he could before finally setting off and facing the inevitable.

Once his things were all packed he left his room. First he knocked on Chris’ door until the man opened it to say that yes, he was awake.

Next was Mila. She was happy and cheery as if nothing was wrong. She never got hangovers, but this time there was a pink sparkly boa around her neck for some reason.

“Huh! I wonder where I picked this up from.” She grinned and pulled it off. “Want it?” she offered.

Yuri turned around and walked away as if she hadn’t said anything.

And then it was Victor’s turn.

Yuri braced himself for whining and complaining. With an evil grin that didn’t promise anything pleasant for Victor, he stepped up to his door and knocked.

No answer.

He went on knocking.

The next door over opened and an angry man barged out. “Get the hell out of here! We’re trying to get some sleep!”

“You bastard!” Yuri shot back. “I’m trying to wake my stupid friend up! What do I care about you or how much sleep you get?”

Chris and Mila ran over, drawn by the sound of his shouting.

“What’s wrong?” one of them asked as the other exclaimed, “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Yuri said. “Just trying to wake Victor up and that idiot won’t answer the door.”

“Don’t worry,” Chris reassured him. “I have the spare key for his room.”

He opened the door and gestured with his head for Yuri to go first.

Yuri marched in angrily. “Oy! Victor! I –”

The bed was empty. As was the floor.

The skaters searched the room, peered under the bed and checked the bathroom. Still there was no sign of Victor. They exchanged worried looks.

“Where the hell is he?” Yuri demanded. “Didn’t he come back with you?”

“Uh… no,” Chris admitted. “We sort of… split up.”

“ _Split up_? You mean you left that idiot _out there_? Who knows where the hell he is now? Couldn’t you look after him? Now we get to spend the rest of the day looking through this whole city for him. Great! Just great! That’s _exactly_ what I wanted to spend my vacation doing!” Yuri ranted. “Well?” he asked after a short, but heavy silence. “Well?” he repeated, looking from Chris to Mila. “What bright ideas do you have now?”

“Listen, Yuri, I know you’re upset, but –” Chris began.

“Oh my god!” Mila exclaimed. “What are we going to do now?” All the joy and happiness that had been on her face that morning had drained away. Even she was terrified. “How will we ever find him? We can’t even call him, because you confiscated his phone!”

Yuri rolled his eyes. “And what a _bright_ idea that was!”

Chris’ face split in a smile. “Actually, I don’t have it anymore. I think he took it back. He probably –”

“How do you know you didn’t just lose it?” Yuri demanded, cutting him off.

“It’s worth a try,” Mila said and pulled her phone out. “I’ll call him,” she offered and did just that.

“Besides,” Yuri hissed, “even if he _did_ take it with him, who says he didn’t just drop it somewhere in the street? Or leave it here, or…” He paused and held his breath.

They waited to hear the phone ring, but it didn’t.

“Please pick up,” Mila whispered. “Come on! Come on! Victor! Please!”

Her mind raced. Victor could’ve gone anywhere. In his drunk state he could’ve even taken a train all the way to London!

She remembered one night when they went out for drinks in St. Petersburg. The next morning Victor called her, asking if she knew how he’d ended up in Moscow.

“Yakov is going to kill us, if we lost him!” Mila whispered.

“I doubt it,” Yuri said, leaning against one of the walls. “He’ll be grateful until his dying day.” Yuuri, on the other hand…

 

Victor woke up with the floor pressing hard against his cheek. Something vibrated next to his face, making a lot of noise, far more noise than was necessary.

“Wha…?” he mumbled, feeling around for the annoying object. “Who…?” He stared at the loud, irritating thing.

It was a long time before he figured out that it was, in fact, his phone. Finally it occurred to him that the reason it was making so much noise was that someone was calling him and he needed to answer it to make the noise stop.

“Yeah?”

“Victor! Oh thank god! Victor!” Mila exclaimed.

He winced. “Can you keep it down? What are you so excited about?”

“Because,” Yuri’s voice cut in, “we’re in your room right now and it’s empty. Where the hell are you?”

“Ughh…” He rubbed his forehead. “I’m not… I’m not in my room?”

“Obviously not.”

“I… uh…” He stared up at the ceiling above him. “But I’m in a room… on… on the floor…”

“Well that narrows it down,” Yuri grumbled. “Thanks for that informative answer!”

“Victor, can you come here?” Mila asked.

He felt around with his hands and tried to raise himself. The world spun around him, making him flop back down almost right away. Why did it need to spin? And why was it so bright? “Do I have to? Can’t you come here and…” he waved his arm in the air, trying to find the next few words, “and get me there.” Wherever “there” was.

“Ok,” Chris said. “We’ll come get you. Where are you?”

“A room?” Victor offered.

Three skaters sighed in frustration at that.

“Can you describe it?” Chris asked in a voice that suggested that his patience was starting to run out.

“The ceiling is white,” Victor said. Were all ceilings white? He suddenly had no idea, but this was an important detail, right?

“And…?” Mila prompted.

Victor turned his head. “The wall is white too.”

“Great,” Yuri muttered. “How many thousand rooms do you think there are in this city with white walls and white ceilings?”

“The carpet is soft,” Victor added. That was important, for some reason. “And…” His face split in a watery smile as he remembered who he’d called the day before. “Yuuri is so wonderful! I love him and will marry him soon…”

“You know, _shockingly_ , that’s not going to help us find you,” Yuri mumbled.

Mila gave a soft gasp. “Victor?” she asked. “You’re not with Yuuri _right_ _now_ , are you?”

“Hmm?” Victor turned his head to check just in case. “Of course not!” He giggled and winced as the action hurt him. “Why would I be with Yuuri right now? He’s far away in England, silly!”

“Victor,” Chris cut in, the edge of frustration to his voice. “Describe where you are. Is there anything on the wall? Is there anyone else in the room with you? Are you in a bar?”

Victor hummed. “The wall has a painting on it,” he said, squinting up at it. “Someone in a lake, I think… Or maybe it’s someone in the grass?”

“Well that helps!” Yuri exclaimed.

“There’s no one here but me,” Victor said. “I’m all alone,” he sang softly, “there’s no one here beside me.”

“We don’t have to listen to this nonsense,” Yuri cut in.

Mila nodded. “Yuri is right. We need to go look for him. Let’s start with the street where we drank together and go from there. Yuri, stay here just in case Victor decides to come back.”

Yuri nodded.

Chris and Mila ate a quick breakfast and set out on a search for the living legend.

While the hunt for Victor Nikiforov went on, Yuri descended to the lobby and asked everyone he met if they’d seen “a tall man with white hair who was drunk out of his mind”.

 _Maybe he came back and barged into someone else’s room,_ Yuri thought, but no one had seen Victor and there were no tourists complaining about a man trying to break into their rooms in the middle of the night.

Where in the world could he be?

 

The drive from Oxford to Canterbury, where their next stop was going to be, was over two hours. At times the road became really monotonous, making it meaningless to stare out the window.

Yuuri, who’d woken up without a trace of a hangover, sat in the back seat next to Otabek and texted Victor. He felt really embarrassed of their strange messages the night before, but Victor ignored his attempts at being serious and continued sending him nonsense.

At least it was something, Yuuri told himself. At least it was better than not hearing anything from Victor and having to rely on others to find out how he was doing.

 _Yourrr faceee is THE most beautiful thing in the world,_ Victor texted.

 _No yours is,_ Yuuri texted back.

They texted each other about their favourite places in St. Petersburg from little shops to cute restaurants.

Victor sent Yuuri two dozen hearts.

 _I know a good place to buy white tuxedoes,_ Yuuri wrote back.

Victor’s response was just: _!!!!!_

Yuuri blushed, raised his head to see where they were, prepared to text something like “We’re getting close to” and saw that where the car was supposed to turn with the road, it was going straight.

“Georgi!” he called out in a panic.

 

_The road stretched out ahead of him with no end in sight. There were no signs to show what exit was coming up next and no exits, just the open road. There weren’t even any cars._

_Georgi turned his head and saw a car drive up on his left. A sheep sat at the wheel. It grinned at him, showing off a mouth full of white teeth._

_He turned his head to the right. Another car appeared there. It also had a sheep at its wheel._

_The passenger sitting next to him was a sheep. Two sheep sat in the back._

_He stared down at his arms. He was also a sheep…_

“Georgi!” Yuuri’s panicked voice snapped him back to reality.

There were no sheep, only humans, and he was about to drive straight for the bushes. He swerved back onto the road, feeling his blood run cold.

Everyone in the car burst out talking all at once. They chattered away, terrified at their close brush with death, wishing to know what Georgi was thinking. Someone even asked him if he was going mad. Even Otabek, who was usually so quiet, was saying something.

“I barely slept last night,” Georgi admitted. “Sorry, everyone, I … I can’t drive us today.”

“I’ll drive,” Yuuri offered. “Just take the first exit and park the car somewhere so we can switch. You can nap in the car.”

“Thank you,” Georgi said, tears rising to his eyes as he thought of Yuuri in the back of the car, who was engaged to marry Victor soon and who he’d nearly killed. “I’m so sorry! I thought I could… I didn’t….”

Phichit put a hand on his shoulder. “Just focus on the road now,” he said.

They all watched him carefully until he got off the motorway and parked the car, forgetting about everything else.

“I… I” He put his hands over his face and his shoulders shook.

Phichit put an arm around him. “Come on. There’s a little shop over there. Let’s go buy you water. Or we can get you coffee, if you want.”

Georgi let Phichit lead him away.

Yuuri texted Victor that he had to drive for the rest of the day and promised to let him know when they got to Canterbury. He opened the door and climbed out.

“Did you tell him?” Otabek asked.

Yuuri held the door open and leaned back into the car. “Tell who what?”

“Victor. What just happened.”

“What? How can I tell him that we just…” Yuuri closed the door gently and climbed into the driver’s seat, too terrified to finish that sentence.

“Shouldn’t you tell your fiancé everything?” Otabek asked.

“I can’t tell him something like this,” Yuuri pointed out. “Think what he’ll do when he finds out! He’ll panic and rush over here. That will just lead to more problems. After all, we’re fine.” Yuuri stared out the window, waiting for Phichit and Georgi to return.

“How did you decide,” Otabek suddenly asked, “Victor is the person you want to spend the rest of your life with?”

“Wh-what?” Yuuri blushed deeply and stared down at his hands. “I just… knew, I suppose. I don’t know how. It’s … just a feeling.” He fidgeted. “Sorry my answer isn’t very helpful. Is… is there someone you want to – oh! I’m sorry! It’s none of my business!” It was getting so awkward so fast that Yuuri urged Phichit and Georgi on mentally so that they would come back faster.

Otabek shifted closer. “There is someone,” he confirmed in a quiet tone of voice.

Phichit and Georgi finally appeared at the other end of the parking lot, walking back together and talking about something animatedly.

Otabek murmured, “I’ll tell you later.”

 _Oh god!_ Yuuri thought. _He wasn’t going to say that it’s me, was he?_

He tried to imagine Victor’s reaction to this and then thought, _No, it’s not possible_. Otabek knew he was engaged to someone else. And why would Otabek be interested in him, anyway?

 

“We’ll never find him like this,” Mila pointed out after two hours of fruitless searching.

“What do you suggest?” Chris asked.

They’d gone through all the pubs on that street, taking one side each. Now they stood at the end of the street, discussing what their next course of action would be.

“Call the police,” Mila suggested. “They’ll help us. It’s their job to help in a case like this. Besides, you don’t know, maybe he’s in a cell somewhere.”

Chris shook his head. “No, he can’t be! He’s here somewhere, I just know it!”

Mila sighed. “What do you suggest we do, then? Knock on the door of every house within a mile radius? And then when that doesn’t help keep going to two miles and then three?”

“We can wait until he gets over his hangover,” Chris pointed out, “and comes to us.”

Mila’s phone rang and she pulled it out of her pocket. “It’s Yuri,” she told Chris before answering it. “Yuri! Please tell me you have good news!”

“Ugh!” Yuri swore loudly. “I found him. Get over here and pull him off me.”

“Yu-uri!” Victor’s voice rang out over the line. “You rescued me!”

“Where was he? Where are you right now?” Mila asked, giving Chris a look of relief.

“The bastard was behind the couch in our hotel’s lobby the whole time!” Yuri shot back.

Mila and Chris exchanged another look and burst out laughing. Sure, they’d just spent two hours barging into every bar on the street, sure they’d had to deal with angry barmen and frustrated waiters, but that didn’t keep them from seeing the comical side of the situation.

“Yeah, very funny,” Yuri muttered. “Okay, you idiots, come here and get king idiot sorted out. I’m going to have lunch.”

 

Two hours later, when they finally stopped bursting into giggles at the merest mention of the incident, they drove into the small village of Challain-la-Potherie. A bridge took them over a little pond, through what looked like the remains of an old gate and…

Victor stared out the window with his mouth open.

…into a fairy tale. And not just _any_ fairy tale, but one that Victor himself would’ve written.

“Our next destination, lady and gentlemen,” Chris said as he drove into an empty spot and parked. “I give you the Chateau of Challain-la-Potherie!”

Victor stepped out of the car and looked around. “Where is everyone? Why isn’t this place overflowing with tourists?”

Chris gave him a smile. “Isn’t it better that we get it all to ourselves?”

Victor had to agree that there was some truth to that. And, yet, as he entered the grounds of the chateau he couldn’t help thinking that something was wrong. Where were the people selling tickets? Where was the helpful staff determined to give you a pamphlet with everything you would ever need to know about the castle (along with a map)?

Maybe the place was closed, he thought.

Victor got so used to being disappointed in his attempt to find the perfect wedding location that he waited to hear the reason why he couldn’t marry Yuuri here.

Chris marched boldly in front of everyone as if he owned the place. He opened the doors and stepped inside without even waiting for them to catch up.

A woman well past thirty greeted them. She was in a long light-coloured dress and had the air of someone who owned the place. As it turned out, she did in fact own the place.

It also didn’t take long for them to find out that the castle had been closed for tourists for several years.

Victor gave a sad sigh. He knew it.

“I run a hotel business now,” the woman said, giving Chris her card.

Victor gave it an absent-minded look and wondered where he’d seen that last name before.

“I did a lot of work on the castle,” she told them and got into the history of the place, how it had once been abandoned and how many repairs it needed.

Victor’s mind wandered off, but then an important word brought his attention back to the conversation.

“…and weddings of course. We arrange for a few days, or a week (depending on what people want). Everyone stays in the castle and I hire a chef to come and cook for them. I find a professional photographer. One of the couples who got married here wanted acrobats, another one wanted…”

Victor could barely contain his excitement.

Chris glanced at him and then gave the owner a look of pleasant surprise. “What a lucky coincidence!” he said in a tone of voice that told everyone that coincidences had nothing to do with it. “My friend here is engaged to be married and just got into an argument with the staff of Chenonceau who wouldn’t let him host a wedding there.”

Victor cleared his throat nervously and stepped forward, feeling as if all of the holidays had come at once, or – no – as if he was dreaming. He debated pinching himself, but decided that it would only raise questions. “I… You host weddings?”

The woman nodded with an encouraging smile.

“I want a wedding in the winter,” he began. “Does the lake here freeze over?”

Yuuri drove into Canterbury and parked the car when his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket, worried that something had happened to Victor, only to find that the caller was Yuri.

“Katsudon,” he said in a half-whisper, “how confident do you feel about winning gold in the Grand Prix Final this year?”

“I haven’t thought about it,” Yuuri lied. He only thought about it at least twice a day, every day. But of all the people, he never expected to hear a question like that from Yuri. He braced himself for a string of insults. “Why?”

“Because Victor is planning the wedding for this December. He... already made reservations.”

Yuuri felt the blood rush to his face and then, just as he was about to start panicking an even bigger worry stepped in to take charge. Could he do it? Victor was counting on him. But what if he didn’t win gold next season? Then they’d have to wait for another year and then what? What if he _never_ won?

“Yuuri?” Phichit called.

He turned, realized he’d given away that he’d taken his phone back and blushed deeper. “I-I… I need to go,” he told Yuri and hung up.

Yuuri felt his knees tremble under him, but someone put arm around his waist, keeping him standing upright. He raised his eyes and saw that it was Otabek.

“Do you want to sit down?” he offered.

“N-no, I’m ok,” Yuuri assured him. He freed himself gently, but it was still so hard to stay upright. “Can we go get something to drink, please?”

They took him to a café where he dropped into a chair in relief. Still Otabek looked after him, asking what he would like to drink and getting it for him.

“You don’t need to…” Yuuri protested. He could take care of himself. He was just feeling a little weak at the moment.

“I promised Yuri to look after you,” Otabek said in that straightforward way of his.

Phichit and Georgi both stared at him in amazement.

“And Yuri promised to look after Victor,” Otabek added as if that explained everything.

This strange arrangement left Yuuri speechless.

“I want to date Yuri Plisetsky,” Otabek announced next.

“Oh.”

Phichit and Georgi remained silent.

“Will you give me your permission?”

“My- my permission?” Yuuri almost chocked on the words.

Maybe he was dreaming, Yuuri thought. Maybe he’d also fallen asleep at the wheel just like Georgi had and was dreaming all this nonsense. He pinched himself under the table. It hurt, but he didn’t wake up. This was really happening.

“Why do you need my permission?” Yuuri asked. It was the only thing he could think of saying.

“As his guardian,” Otabek said and Yuuri felt his jaw drop.

Guardian? _Him_? He wasn’t even married yet!

Phichit put a hand over Yuuri’s. He held his other hand over his mouth. “Do you give Otabek your permission?”

He could feel everyone watching him. Maybe this was a prank. That _would_ explain a lot, he thought. This was nothing more than a prank and they just wanted to laugh at him. He looked around the table. Phichit looked ready to burst out laughing. Georgi had the expression of someone about to exclaim “aw!” and Otabek was his usual serious self. Would Otabek pull a prank like this on him, though?

What if it was serious? What if Otabek was sincere, even if he did manage to get the wrong end of the stick in this case?

Yuuri tried to think of an answer that would work for both situations and failed.

The silence was getting awkwardly long now. He had to say something, anything.

“You… uh…” Yuuri took a sip of his tea as if his throat was dry. “You have my permission, of course, but only as long as Yuri wants to date you.”

Phichit burst out laughing.

Georgi applauded.

Yuuri bit his lip. It was a prank after all.

Otabek rose to his feet and bowed, saying “thank you”. He actually bowed!

Yuuri’s jaw dropped a second time that day and he stared at Otabek, at a complete loss for words. This was starting to get really ridiculous even if it _was_ a prank!

“Well!” Phichit exclaimed after a long silence. “Are we ready to go?”

Yuuri nodded. He needed to be alone so he could think about their conversation, but, for now, he would have to spend time with his friends. Which, at that moment, meant going to the Canterbury Cathedral.

As they walked through the streets of Canterbury Yuuri texted Victor about Otabek’s request. Maybe he could explain what it was all about.

 

Victor and the owner of Chateau de Challain-la-Potherie were deep in conversation. She took him through the chateau, showing him a few of the empty rooms. Those all met with his approval. How could he say no to well-decorated rooms with big four-poster beds? His imagination painted him a very vivid image of the bedroom he and Yuuri would use. He stepped out behind the castle and marvelled at the view.

“Some couples want to go on a little wine tour,” the owner told him. “Of course, you can’t do that in the winter, but we can figure something out, if you want it.”

Victor didn’t even raise the question of money. This only earned him worried looks from his friends.

The owner of the place, however, was very charmed by this. She kept wondering where she’d seen Victor before. Was he a Russian oligarch? Maybe that was it.

“Are you sure you don’t want a summer wedding?” she asked. “We can set the tables up outdoors and light lanterns up in the evening.”

Yuri rolled his eyes. “Someone stop him before he buys the place.” He turned his head and realized that Mila and Chris had wondered off to admire the pond and the view of the castle from there.

“Admit it,” Mila said softly, “you set this all up deliberately.”

Chris shrugged. “Victor seems happy enough.”

“Yes, but will Yuuri agree to something this grand?” Mila wondered. She was very enamoured with it herself and would have loved to get married here. There was a staircase that was just made for people to take photos of brides in long white dresses.

“We’ll talk him round,” Chris promised.

Mila turned to look at him. “So if you knew about this place, why didn’t you just tell Victor about it?”

Chris laughed. “And miss out on a chance to go on a trip like this?”

Yuri marched over to them. “He just promised her a deposit and booked the week of his birthday for the wedding! Aren’t you going to do anything?”

Chris and Mila exchanged a look. “Well,” Chris said, “he’s an adult. I can’t exactly stop him from spending all his savings on a wedding.”

“What the hell is wrong with you? Both of you?” Yuri motioned at his head. “Did you fall over and hit yourselves yesterday? He’s about to spend _fifty thousand euros_ on marrying Katsudon without even getting an agreement from him and besides,” he grinned evilly, “Katsudon needs to win gold first.”

Mila hadn’t been there when the promise was announced, but she’d heard about it. Ever since then whenever someone mentioned it she would start arguing about it. “I don’t understand why it has to be _Grand Prix_ gold. Yuuri already won –” she began, making the same argument as always, but Yuri cut her off impatiently.

“Why don’t you tell Katsudon and king idiot over there?” He made an impatient noise and sulked away, taking his phone out of his pocket.

“Maybe we should intervene,” Mila suggested.

Chris didn’t argue and they walked over to join Victor.

“All set?” Chris asked, putting a hand on Victor’s shoulder.

“What? No, there’s a lot that needs sorting out,” Victor protested.

Chris flashed the owner a charming smile. “My friend is a big romantic and will probably ask to have an orchestra here especially when he serenades his fiancé the night before their wedding.” He gave a half-shrug with one arm, as if to say that it was unfortunate and that he was powerless to do anything about it. “But what I think Victor needs to do is _talk things over with his fiancé_.” He threw a meaningful look at Victor.

At those words the happy smile drained from Victor’s face. He knew exactly how that conversation would go.

“But I’m sure all that will be mostly about the colour of the flowers, or whatever other details you still need to sort out,” Chris reassured everyone. “You have a very charming castle here, Madame,” he said to the owner. “I can’t imagine who would turn a place like this down for a wedding.”

Victor had the look of someone who _could_ imagine the person who would turn it down and that person happened to also be his fiancé.

“So, unfortunately, we need to go now,” Chris said. “Victor will call you once he gets all those details sorted out.” He pulled Victor away gently. “Oh! One more thing,” Chris remembered and turned back around to face her, “how good are you at keeping the press out?”

She straightened up indignantly. “ _Very_ good,” she assured him.

“Excellent!” Chris urged Victor back to the car.

Mila smiled politely at the owner, wishing her a good day.

Yuri walked back to the car in sullen silence. He threw another quick glance at the castle, as if he worried that someone would see his interest in it, and turned away, pulling his hood up to cover his head.

Although he would never admit it, this looked like _exactly_ the kind of place where Yuuri and Victor would get married.

 

Victor felt like someone waking up from a happy dream to a grey and boring reality. It was so hard to tear himself away from the image of a wedding here.

He climbed into the passenger seat in the front and gave a big sigh.

Chris threw a look at him as he sat down behind the wheel and drove out of the little village. “All that talk about fancy food made me hungry,” he said. “Let’s see if we can find something to eat in the next town.”

The next village along the road was Pouancé, which also came with its own castle. This was a much older structure that was in need of a lot of repair – at least half of it had been destroyed in the past.

The travellers wandered over to it out of curiosity and stared sadly at the poor remnants behind a metal gate.

“Well, a wedding here will probably be the cheapest,” Yuri muttered and rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you discuss this over lunch? I think we passed something on the way here.”

They strolled down one of the few streets of the village until they stumbled into a pub and an English one, if looks were anything to go by.

“What’s an English pub doing in a small French village?” Chris asked.

“Who cares? Will they serve us something to eat?” Yuri marched boldly over to the front door and pulled it open.

This pub, like so many others came with a menu on the wall. Yuri stared hungrily at it and, once he was sure that included food and not just drinks, dropped into a chair at one of the tables. His travelling companions soon joined him.

An elderly woman came over to them and asked in English what they would like.

“An omelette sounds great!” Chris exclaimed before Yuri could open his mouth.

“I’m afraid I’m all out of eggs,” she told them with an apologetic look. “There’s some holiday today that they’re all celebrating and the grocery stores are closed.”

Victor fiddled sadly with his fork.

Yuri muttered a curse under his breath.

Mila gave the woman a curious look. “No, they’re not: the one across the street was open when we passed it.”

“Really? That’s wonderful! In that case, I can make you omelettes with whatever you would like.” She took their orders and left.

Five minutes later they saw her leave to go across the street to return with two dozen eggs almost right away.

Victor gave a heavy sigh and went on pretending his fork was really interesting.

Mila looked around her at the walls decorated with horse saddles, stirrups, reigns, horseshoes and everything else a horse would ever need as well as pictures of horses. “Charming here, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Something tells me the owner really likes horses,” Chris joked.

The owner returned with four glasses of water and Chris and Mila used this chance to question her. When they found out that she used to train horses and was now here, enjoying her retirement, they had even more questions, but this time they kept them all to themselves.

“What will you do when you retire?” Mila asked Chris softly as soon as the woman left.

“I could be a coach, I suppose, but if you want to know after that…”

Both skaters then competed in who would think of the best retirement plans. These included fancy apartments in Monaco, and villas in Italy, and…

Victor sighed heavier and his breath blew all those imaginary castles away.

“What’s wrong?” Mila asked, knowing that if he was ignored any longer he would get moody.

“Nothing, only…” Their food arrived and he waited patiently for the woman to leave, “…I find the best place for a wedding, but Yuuri will never agree to come here.”

Mila did her best to be sympathetic. Somewhere people were dying of hunger, elsewhere – wars raged on, but right here in the little village of Pouancé Victor Nikiforov was sulking because he couldn’t get married in a fancy castle.

“We’ll talk him round, you’ll see,” Chris promised. “This is a really good omelette. Maybe I should get seconds.”

Victor sighed. Even his friends didn’t care about his problems!

Yuuri had texted him earlier, something about Otabek asking for permission to marry Yuri. It confused Victor to no end and he sent a vague response, saying something about hoping they would be happy together. Otabek would probably let Yuri have whatever wedding he wanted and with tigers too.

His friends went on, talking about retirement, and Victor felt as if he was retiring. All he wanted was to marry Yuuri in a castle and then raise five or six dogs with him. Was that really so much to ask?

Yuuri, meanwhile was walking around Canterbury Cathedral, his eyes not focusing on any of the statues, or details there. His mind was on Victor. He could tell that the man was upset about something, but what could it possibly be? He texted Victor again, but got no response. Now he was sulking.

Had Yuuri done something wrong? Was it something to do with the wedding plans?

Yuuri had a sneaking suspicion then that this wasn’t something recent, but that it had to do with their earlier argument. Victor had probably found somewhere grand for them to get married in, like a big cathedral, and was sulking because he knew that Yuuri would never agree to it.

Yuuri stopped in front of a statue of a knight lying with his hands joined above his chest. _I have to be firm,_ he thought. _I don’t want our wedding to be all over the news._

He remembered all of the questions from the press after their kiss at the Cup of China and sighed. That had been bad enough, but a wedding was bound to attract even _more_ attention.

 

Victor sulked all the way to Rennes and when the group went out in the evening to go for a walk around the city Chris decided that enough was enough.

“Look, I don’t understand what you’re so upset about. You haven’t even talked to him yet,” Chris pointed out. “How do you know he won’t agree to it?”

“He won’t,” Victor said. “We’ve already fought about this. Multiple times.”

“You fought with Katsudon?” Yuri asked in disbelief and snorted. “Of course you did. How does he even put up with you?”

Victor’s response was another sigh.

“Listen,” Chris said, putting an arm around Victor’s shoulders, “I promise you to talk to him. Phichit and I will do our best to talk him round.”

“You can’t –” Victor began to protest.

“We _can_ and we _will_ ,” Chris promised. “Now, let’s get back to enjoying ourselves, alright? We only have two days of vacation left.”

But this time Victor left them to it and didn’t join Mila and Chris when they went out drinking. He returned to the hotel in moody silence. Yuri kept throwing glances at him. Even he was beginning to get worried about Victor.

As they reached their floor Yuri stopped and stared up at Victor. “Listen, for what it’s worth, I think that place is made for you and Katsudon to get married in, but if you think I’m going to argue with him about this, you can forget it!” He made for his room and banged the door behind him just in case Victor thought of following.

Yuri put a hand over his heart with a terrified look on his face. What the hell was that? What did _he_ care where those idiots got married? Or if they got married at all?

It was late afternoon by the time Yuuri’s group arrived in Dover. They ventured out onto the white cliffs and walked all the way to the lighthouse in the distance. By the time they returned to the car the sun was starting to set. Luckily, it wasn’t a long drive along the shore to the place where they would be staying. This time Georgi was at the wheel.

Phichit’s phone rang when they arrived at the hotel and he stepped away from the group to answer it. “Hello Chris! Enjoying your trip?”

“He liked the place we picked for him,” Chris said, jumping straight to the point.

“Of course he did.”

“He’s practically booked it too. There’s just one problem.”

“Oh?” Phichit asked. He turned and watched his friends enter the hotel. He had a feeling he knew what the “problem” was.

“He’s convinced Yuuri won’t agree to it,” Chris explained.

“I’ll sort it out,” Phichit promised. He had no idea how he would do it, but that didn’t keep him from believing that he could do it.

“Good luck.”

 

Their hotel was in a little town named Folkestone, not far from Dover. It was an old building and everything inside was slowly falling apart, but it didn’t bother Yuuri in the slightest.

He dropped onto his bed and turned to face the wall. He was in no mood to talk. For the first time during this trip he didn’t want the trip to be over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For more photos:  
> [Challain-la-Potherie](https://www.flickr.com/photos/115120419@N08/sets/72157657478902342)  
> [Canterbury](https://www.flickr.com/photos/115120419@N08/sets/72157672331377991)  
> [Pouancé](https://www.flickr.com/photos/115120419@N08/sets/72157657478902332)  
> [Dover](https://www.flickr.com/photos/115120419@N08/sets/72157672174592950)
> 
> The chateau with weddings is an actual thing. If you don’t believe me, look up the name and go on the castle’s official website. I find it really funny that you can book weddings and elopements…


	7. Day Six – Victor’s Son

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A swan on the ice. – The wedding gets cancelled. – How Victor packed for his trip. – Beaches. – Gothic Cathedrals. – Yuri makes a new friend. – Some father! – Father and son.

_Victor walked through a small wood with a whole orchestra following in his steps. They stepped out into a clearing and there it was – the Chateau of Challain-la-Potherie. All of the windows except for one were dark and he stepped up to the one with the light in it._

_A smile appeared on his face. He turned around to face the orchestra. They were all in black suits with serious expressions on their faces._

_Victor raised his arms like a conductor and lowered them. All at once they began to play, filling the air with beautiful music._

_He turned back around, opened his mouth and sang._ “Stammi vicino, non te ne andare!”

_The sound of his voice, carried up, up to that window, to the roof, even. It was beautiful, guaranteed to win any heart over._

_He held the last note and watched the window open. A woman stepped out. It was the owner of the chateau herself._

_Victor’s voice cut off and he almost swore. It was the wrong window!_

_He looked along the wall, trying to remember which one was supposed to be Yuuri’s, but there were so many windows! The row of windows was never-ending. Who knew which one was dear Yuuri’s?_

_He panicked. If he didn’t find the right window, he couldn’t get married to Yuuri! What if he never found it? What would he do then?_

Victor woke up and sat up, breathing hard. He had to go and find the right window. Why didn’t he agree with Yuuri which one would be his? Why didn’t…

He looked around at the small room and the even smaller bed.

Where was Yuuri?

This is wasn’t a room in the chateau! Why wasn’t he in the chateau? Did he get thrown out for messing up his own wedding?

And then Victor remembered that he was in a hotel in Rennes and that Yuuri was in England, on his own trip.

He pulled out his phone and checked the time. It was still 2 in the morning.

Victor dropped back down onto the bed and drifted off to sleep again.

 

_Yuuri was out on the ice, skating in something white that was all sparkles and feathers. Victor stood at the boards, unable to tear his eyes away. He knew without looking that Yuuri was skating only for him and no one else._

_Beautiful music played. He wasn’t sure what the melody was, but it sounded familiar._

_Yuuri raised his arms and went into a spin._

_Here was beauty and grace. Here was the skater he wanted to devote his whole life to. Here was…_

_Victor was a teenager. His hair was long again._

_Yuuri was so full of life and love it made Victor’s heart ache. There he was, right_ there _, all he had to do was reach out to take his hand, but for some reason he couldn’t._

_They were too far apart…_

_He was out in the middle of the ice now and Yuuri went around him in circles._

_Still Yuuri was skating just for him._

_Victor was close enough to touch him now. He reached out and…_

…and woke up a second time that morning.

It was light out now.

He got up and walked over to the window. Outside the sun had already risen and a clear light blue sky promised a bright sunny day.

The new day was so full of hope Victor imagined it whispering to him that only good days were ahead. After all he loved Yuuri and was loved in return. They would find a way to sort things out so that both of them were happy, wouldn’t they?

He imagined a perfect winter wedding, complete with them skating out on the frozen pond together.

 

_The ceremony and the dinner were over. Everyone danced late into the night in a grand hall lit by a hundred candles._

_Finally Yuuri held out his arm and took Victor up to the main bedroom in the castle._

_They didn’t sleep until the dawn light started to slip into their bedroom. Only then did they let fatigue claim them at last._

_It was almost noon when they woke up._

_Yuuri sat up slowly, sleepily and his eye fell on the window._

_“Victor, look!” he exclaimed. “There’s so much snow!”_

_They rushed to the window together to see that at least a meter of snow had fallen overnight._

_Outside it was so cold and the snow towered so high, but in here it was warm and comfortable and the bed was so soft…_

 

A smile spread over Victor’s face.

He left the window to get dressed. There were only two days left: this one and the next.

And then he would be reunited with his Yuuri at last.

He looked at the time as the idea of calling Yuuri occurred to him. Was it too early? Was Yuuri still sleeping?

Remembering how cranky he got when roused early, Victor decided to have breakfast before making his call.

Downstairs he found the other Yuri having breakfast and joined him at the table. “Good morning! Sleep well?”

Yuri nodded moodily.

“What’s wrong?” Victor asked, surprised that anyone could be upset on such a nice morning.

“Nothing.”

Victor’s memory chose that moment to remind him of Yuuri’s odd text the day before. “Yuuri told me that Otabek asked for his permission to marry you.”

“He did _what_?” Yuri exclaimed.

Everyone in the room turned to stare.

Yuri lowered his voice and leaned forward. “If this is some kind of joke, it isn’t funny!”

“Here, let me show you.” Victor pulled his phone out and found Yuuri’s text. “Oh. He asked for permission to date you. Yuuri and I,” that sounded so good he promised himself to say it more often, “don’t understand why he’s asking us – well, Yuuri – for permission.”

Yuri sighed and downed the remainder of his juice. “For some reason he thinks you two are my guardians. Don’t look at me, I said no such thing!”

It wasn’t just Otabek, Victor realized. Then he wondered what Yuri thought about being his adopted son.

The empty glass caught his eye and Victor rose to his feet. “Do you want more juice?”

“What? Yeah, sure. Orange juice,” he said, pushing his glass forward.

Victor picked it up and then reached out to brush some of Yuuri’s hair out of his face.

He’d spent so much of his life expecting to keep lots of dogs after he retired from figure skating that a certain thought had never crossed his mind before.

Children.

_Yuuri and I should adopt a few children. We could teach them how to skate. With our combined talent we’re sure to find and train the next living legend._

“What are you doing?” Yuri demanded in a tone of voice that suggested that he didn’t expect an answer that would make him happy.

Victor snatched his hand away. “Nothing,” he lied and left to get Yuri his juice.

 

Yuuri dreamt about Victor, but while Victor’s dream about Yuuri could be called poetic, Yuuri’s dream about Victor couldn’t.

 

_They had a big argument and both said things they shouldn’t have._

_“Fine!” Victor exclaimed. “If you’re going to be so stubborn about this, we won’t get married at all! Obviously that’s what you really want, so it’s what you’re gonna get.”_

_“That’s fine by me!” Yuuri snapped back. “Obviously this shows that marrying you is a bad idea!”_

Yuuri woke up and panicked. What? The wedding with Victor was broken off? It was over. _They_ were over.

His put his hands over his face and wept. Everything was over.

No, no, it wasn’t, he realized, pulling his hands off his face. That had been nothing more than nightmare!

He scrambled around for his phone and called, feeling a desperate need to hear Victor’s voice that very moment. He needed someone to assure him that it hadn’t been true.

“Victor? I…” He sighed and put his hand over his face again.

“Good morning, Yuuri! Did you sleep well?”

Yuuri breathed in slowly, closed his eyes and imagined he could see Victor’s face. “I love you,” he said, “and I want to marry you very much.”

“I know, Yuuri, me too.”

Well, there was no avoiding it now. He knew that Victor could tell that something was wrong and was waiting for Yuuri to explain what it was. “Yuri called me yesterday. He said you already made a reservation.”

“I haven’t,” Victor admitted, “it was more of a promise. “Listen, Yuuri, I want you to enjoy it as much as me, but I also want to surprise you with it.”

Yuuri was silent. He imagined they were in the room together, sitting on the bed and talking the way they did some evenings when they wanted to have a conversation in private. He imagined Victor pressing little kisses into the palm of Yuuri’s hand in an attempt to win him over.

 

_He raised his eyes, giving Yuuri that puppy-eyed look that he knew worked so well._

“I want to kiss you,” Yuuri said. “A-and,” he traced a circle out on the bed, “and I want to feel you put your arms around me. Hold me close and whisper…”

“ _I’m right here, Yuuri, and I will never let you go_ ,” Victor finished in a whisper that made a shiver go up Yuuri’s spine.

Yuuri gave a heavy sigh.

“There’s only today and tomorrow left,” Victor reassured him, “and then I promise to hold you and kiss you every day.”

“Same,” Yuuri whispered back.

“I need to go,” Victor told him. “Have a good day! Text me as much as you can.”

“I will,” Yuuri promised.

Hanging up felt like letting go right before one of them had to go out on the ice and competed. And, like at all competitions, he knew that Victor wasn’t far, waiting for him, ready to give him a hug and a kiss, no matter how he skated.

 

_Yuuri was out on the ice, standing before Victor. He was about to skate his free program and the two of them had ended up being back to back. It was probably the first time that a figure skater didn’t go to the kiss and cry to get their scores. Instead, he rushed to the boards so he could talk to Yuuri before his skate._

_“And the score for Victor Nikiforov is…”_

_Victor was holding Yuuri by both hands and looking into his face, whispering words of encouragement._

_Or, rather, to everyone else it looked like words of encouragement. In reality Victor was whispering something else. “I want to go shopping tomorrow before we fly back. Chris said there’s a good store here…”_

_Yuuri promised they would definitely go and realized that he’d completely missed what Victor’s scores were._

_Loud cheering filled the rink._

_He wanted to raise his eyes to see what the displays were showing, but Victor held Yuuri’s face with both hands._

_“And we need to remember to do the laundry when we get back.”_

_He thought of their apartment and of Makkachin, who they’d left behind with Victor’s uncle (his parents were among the audience, watching their son compete against his fiancé)._

_“Show me that beautiful quadruple flip again,” Victor whispered, sliding a thumb down Yuuri’s nose._

_The screams were really loud now._

_Yuuri nodded._

_In their season together Yuuri learned a lot of Victor’s secrets and one of these included two little superstitions he never told anyone. And, over time, they’d come up with their own superstition._

_Victor pulled Yuuri closer for a hug and whispered, “I can’t stop thinking about the ending of that movie we watched last night. How could they make a mother choose which of her children should live?”_

_Yuuri felt tears rise to his eyes and buried his face in Victor’s shoulder. Victor rubbed his back. “It’s your turn, Yuuri.”_

_They pulled apart, keeping their hands stretched out towards each other, as if they were reaching for one another. Yuuri skated out to the middle of the rink, going backwards, unable to break eye contact with Victor._

_If before he was chasing after Victor, trying to catch him up, now it felt as if they were racing together, gripping each other tight._

A knock on the door pulled Yuuri out of his memories.

“Yuuri? Are you awake?” Phichit called. “We’re going down to breakfast now.”

“Coming!” Yuuri called and rushed out of his bed to pull his clothes on and brush his teeth.

 

Victor finished his call and returned to packing his things. He was almost ready to go.

Most people would’ve probably thought about the trip that lay ahead of them, but Victor was thinking back to how he and Yuuri had packed for this trip. He remembered coming up with a list of travel essentials with Yuuri and then cross-checking what he had with the list.

 

_The zipper on Victor’s suitcase got stuck and he struggled with it for a long time, getting more and more frustrated as it refused to move a centimeter._

_“Did you pack too many things?” Yuuri asked from his corner of the room._

_“No, I… It’s just…” Victor went on fighting. He cursed in Russian under his breath._

_Yuuri walked over to him, reached out with both hands to press the lid of the suitcase down. “Try it now,” he said._

_And, of course, the zipper went around happily enough after that._

_Victor raised his eyes and stared at Yuuri. “Have I ever told you that I love you?”_

How did he ever travel before? No, he told himself that morning, “before” was a myth. It didn’t exist. There was only the “now” and the “future”.

He raised his hand to his lips and kissed his wedding ring.

It was time to go.

 

Yuuri got into the driver’s seat. This time the ride was short – they were only going to Brighton to visit the beaches there.

He drove out onto the motorway and opened his window a little to breathe the salty sea air. The road followed the coast and they passed many signs for beaches.

By a stroke of luck, the weather held out, so they decided to skip exploring the town in favour of going swimming.

On such a nice day it came as no surprise to anyone that the beaches were packed to bursting with people. This didn’t mean that a lot of people were swimming, but it did make finding a free patch of sand very difficult task.

The four skaters spent a good half hour searching around, before they found a family that was leaving and was all too happy to surrender their spot to “four nice young men”.

“Yuuri, let’s go first!” Phichit exclaimed. “Otabek and Georgi will look after our stuff.”

Yuuri followed Phichit to the beach without an argument.

While Yuuri’s group enjoyed all the fun a beach had to offer, Victor’s group was driving down a motorway in France.

Chris was deep in sad thoughts about all the places they had to skip because of a day they’d lost, which included an old abbey and more castles, but there was nothing he could do about it now.

Their next stop was Le Mans, mostly to give them a place to rest and somewhere to have lunch, but once they drove into the centre of the town and saw the impressive cathedral at least three of them wanted to go over to it for a closer look.

They had to walk through old streets to get to the cathedral and Victor couldn’t help thinking he was travelling back in time.

Chris gave his surroundings a look of approval. “I’m really regretting that we didn’t get a chance to visit Fontevraud-l'Abbaye.”

“Why? What’s there?” Victor asked.

Mila threw a look at Chris and wondered if there was going to be a wild story there, but Chris had a serious, if thoughtful, expression on his face.

“It is a very old abbey.” He saw the way their expressions changed and hurried to assure them that they _did_ in fact miss a lot by not visiting it. “Several kings and queens are buried there, including Richard the Lionheart.”

Now he could see he’d caught Victor’s attention.

“Imagine a medieval abbey, the stones of which have seen the passage of many centuries, different invasions and various kings, and below the really high ceiling lie statues of several kings and queens in pairs with their hands joined over their chests,” he told them.

Yuri rolled his eyes, but Mila and Victor both listened intently. Victor had even gone one step further – he had the look of someone who _was_ imagining what Chris was describing.

In fact, Victor’s imagination, which had to be kept on a leash even on a good day, took Chris’ description and ran with it.

 

_“Here lie two figure skating legends. They married each other and lived to a very old age, adopting an entire orphanage of children…”_

Mila made a mental note of the place for when she would go on her own trip with Sara.

With all these thoughts in mind, the group entered the main cathedral of Le Mans. As they walked through its halls Chris went on describing the Abbey, making Victor feel as if they were actually there and not here.

Yuri sulked off into the far end of the cathedral where he could text Otabek in peace. What did he care about cathedrals or abbeys?

He got his revenge not long after that when they went for lunch: Yuri both chose where they would eat and got Victor to pay for him again.

 

It was their last day of travelling by car: their next night was in Paris itself. And their last castle came that day too – the chateau of Chantilly, which was less than 30 kilometers away from Paris.

This time Victor didn’t gawk at the castle. On the contrary, he gave it an unimpressed glance as if he was an expert in chateaux and this one wasn’t trying enough.

“I suppose it looks nice,” he said, as if doing the castle a big favour, “but it’s not a patch on _my castle_.”

“ _Your_ castle?” Yuri exclaimed. “Did you buy it already?”

“You know what I mean,” Victor said, making a dismissive gesture.

Yuri stepped up to him with an evil grin. “Besides, what if Yuuri doesn’t win gold?”

“My Yuuri will win gold for me,” Victor assured him, entering the next chamber in the castle and looking at the furniture.

What if he built his own castle and married Yuuri there? It would cost a fortune, definitely, but he would have his own castle at the end, which was without a doubt something worth considering.

Victor planned this castle out in his mind, as if all he needed to do was to want to own one and there it would be.

They circled around the castle, taking it in from different sides and admiring the garden there.

“I like it,” Mila said, turning her head this way and that as she admired one of the statues.

“Thank goodness!” Chris exclaimed. “We’re saved. Mila offered to buy Chantilly!”

“I didn’t…” she began and elbowed him with a laugh. “You!”

 

Yuri wandered off alone: he’d spotted another cat and was far more interested in making friends with him than in any feat of architecture Chris and Victor drove them to.

The cat circled Yuri coquettishly. _I would like it very much, if you gave me some food,_ the cat seemed to say. _Of course, you don’t have to._

He crouched down and scratched the cat’s head. “I’m sorry, I don’t have any food,” he whispered. He went on petting the cat, wondering if it had understood.

The cat slipped away, walked a few steps and stopped to turn around and give him a look. “Meow,” the cat said and turned to go, as if inviting him along.

Yuri followed without thinking.

The cat took him to a little meadow and another dozen or so cats.

“Wow!” Yuri forgot about his friends, his trip and all those castles. He even forgot he was in France. All he could think about was _how many_ cats were there with him.

Ahh, cats!

Yuri woke up from his cat heaven and looked at the time. And panicked. He ran back to the castle, past a man trying to lock the gates to the castle grounds, past a horse racetrack and out to the little town where they’d parked the car.

They left without him! Those brainless idiots left without him!

He swore as he ran. Why didn’t they call him? Didn’t they even notice he was gone? Now he was stuck here, in the middle of nowhere!

Great! Just great!

Why the hell did he _ever_ agree to go on this stupid trip? How the hell did he agree to go with them? He should’ve just gone with Beka! Beka wouldn’t have forgotten about him! Beka wouldn’t have left him stranded in some stupid town!

 Some _father_!

“Yuri!”

He turned at the sound of his name and saw Victor running towards him. “Where were you? We’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

Yuri ran towards him. Only at the last moment did he remember to stop and punch Victor in the arm. “You left me!” he shouted.

“They kicked us out of the castle grounds,” Victor explained, not even wincing at the pain. “We thought you walked back to the car. Yuri!” He threw his arms around Yuri and held him close. “I was beginning to think we lost you!”

He wasn’t going to cry now. He just wasn’t. “Why didn’t you call me?” he asked and bit his lip.

“Oh!” Victor exclaimed. “We… we didn’t think of that.”

Yuri didn’t struggle and let Victor hold him as long as he wanted and a little pasrt of him was disappointed when Victor finally let go.

“Come on,” Victor said and led him to the car, pulling his phone out to call Mila and Chris to tell them that he found Yuri and that everything was okay.

He drove them all to Paris. Their last hotel was in a small street in the Montmartre. Victor drove away with Yuri to return the car while Mila and Chris started their detailed study of all the bars in the area.

“Do you want to go grab dinner later?” Victor asked as he turned into the parking lot for rental cars.

Yuri gave him a suspicious look. “Don’t you want to join them and get drunk out of your mind?”

“Not really,” Victor admitted. “I’d rather take a walk through the city. So what do you say to dinner…” he paused and added, “with _your father_?”

Yuri opened his mouth to swear and remind Victor that he already had a father, thank you very much, but then he remembered everything he’d felt when Victor found him and admitted that he’d been worrying about him.

“I’m hungry,” he said.

“I’ll go return the car while you look up where you want to eat, ok?” Victor asked, climbing out of the car.

Yuri followed him out and gave a nod. He pulled his hood over his head and found a wall to lean against and did his best to act as if this was all very annoying and he was doing Victor a big favour by agreeing to have dinner with him.

After dinner they took a long walk through the streets of Paris. Yuri wasn’t sure why but Victor wanted a photo in front of the Moulin Rouge to send to Yuuri. They almost got lost looking for the place.

They climbed up to Sacré-Cœur and took in the lights of the city below.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Victor asked with a happy sigh.

“Yeah…” Yuri agreed.

“Tomorrow we will conquer this city!” Victor promised.

 

After a full day at the beach, the second group arrived in London. They also went through the complicated process of returning their rental car and then made for their hotel.

It was late when they finished settling into their rooms, but they went out for a walk to explore their area anyway.

“I have an idea,” Phichit said as they returned to their hotel.

“Oh?” Georgi asked.

Yuuri braced himself for something terrible.

“A contest with the other group,” Phichit said, “but I think I’ll leave the details for tomorrow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to admit that after writing several explicit fics writing a G or T rated fic doesn’t feel the same. Every time there is potential for an explicit scene I tiptoe around it, feeling like that scene in that old kid’s movie where the king and queen sit up in bed on their wedding night, playing patty cake…  
> On other news, myself and two other people launched a blog called ["I Want to see a YOI fic About..."](https://iwanttoseeayoificabout.tumblr.com). Please check it out and feel free to send ideas for fics you wish existed out there! (You should be able to do so on anon without a Tumblr account). This doesn’t mean that I will write them, but maybe someone out there will!
> 
> For more photos see:  
> [Le Mans](https://www.flickr.com/photos/115120419@N08/sets/72157657478902252)  
> [Chantilly](https://www.flickr.com/photos/115120419@N08/sets/72157657478902152)


	8. Day Seven – The Race

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rules of the race. – A strange way to flirt. – Stuck in the middle. – A joyous reunion. – An important question.

When it comes to the number of tourist attractions few cities can compete with Paris and London. Knowing this to be the case, Chris and Phichit proposed a race that wouldn’t have worked as well had they been in two other cities.

“What we do is: we try to see as many tourist attractions as possible,” Phichit explained to his friends over breakfast.

“Each time we visit one we take a picture with it and post it as proof that we’ve been there,” Chris told his group.

“We can split up,” Phichit said (still back in London), “but only into teams of two.”

“And,” Chris went on in Paris, “each photo must include both group members.”

By the oddest of coincidences, the explanations happened at the same time and even ended at the same time, as if they’d timed it this way on purpose. And, very nearly at the same time, the other group members exchanged surprised looks. (Of course, had this been one of those movies, it would’ve looked as if Victor was exchanging glances with Yuuri and Otabek was looking at the other Yuri.)

The idea sounded mad, but no one dared to say as much (Yuri actually liked the idea of going through Paris quickly) and so they ended up agreeing to a photo race.

Phichit and Chris let everyone finish their breakfast, told their groups that skipping lunch wasn’t allowed and announced the start of the race.

 

 _In front of beautiful Montmartre!_ Victor wrote, posting his first photo for the race.

“You don’t need a caption,” Chris told him while Victor wrestled with the tags.

The two friends had ended up together, of course, leaving Yuri to be in a team with Mila, who’d already posted a photo of themselves in front of the Eiffel Tower. Mila was grinning as if she’d already won.

“Where next?” Victor asked as he checked if Yuuri or Phichit posted anything yet.

Chris raised his eyes from his phone. “Moulin Rouge,” he answered.

The two teams took different sides of the Seine River with the agreement that if either team ran out of attractions on their side of the river, they could move on to the bridges and then cross to the other side.

 

In London, the two teams reached a similar arrangement, but instead of taking different sides of the Thames River, they split the map of the city in half. Yuuri and Phichit got the west side while Georgi and Otabek got the east side.

Yuuri and Phichit took a photo in front of Kensington Palace and another in Hyde Park.

The path that led deeper into the park looked so inviting, but they didn’t have time to explore it. Instead, they took the Tube to the Marble Arch.

 

Georgi and Otabek’s photo in front of the London Tower started its own meme. Otabek had a serious expression on his face while Georgi seemed to just be happy to be there.

 _There are two types,_ people wrote and then came up with their own two to post about.

 

Instagram filled up quickly with lots of photos of buildings, statues, stations and parks. A few other people joined in, not realizing that #PhotoRace referred to a competition between the London group and the Paris one and ignored completely what everyone else was doing.

Victor went on captioning his photos, as did Yuuri, and both of them kept checking each other’s progress.

 

_In front of Louvre thinking of Yuuri_

_Passing by the Westminster Abbey thinking of Victor_

_Even Jardin des Tuileries won’t make me miss Yuuri less_

_Missing you lots Victor! Here’s Churchill’s statue_

_Not as much as I miss you Yuuri. Place de la Concorde_

_Really Victor? Houses of Parliament_

Victor posted pictures of every garden they passed, every statue, captioning each one with the name and “I love you Yuuri”. Yuuri posted everything they passed with the same confession.

 

_Champs-Élysées. Let’s have dinner here someday Yuuri._

_Why don’t you come here first? London Eye_

_Maybe I will. Arc de Triomphe_

_I will wait. Trafalgar Square._

The history joke was lost entirely on both Yuuri and Victor, who were too busy thinking of other things to remember about a man named Napoleon and all the wars that he fought in. But, of course, the fans didn’t believe that (or, at least, those fans who knew about the history of the period) and they became increasingly convinced that the skaters were fighting. To be fair, it was a very odd way to flirt.

 

Noon came and, not wishing to fall too far behind in the race, everyone picked a place that could be considered a tourist attraction for lunch.

That was how Yuuri and Phichit ended up at the Sherlock Holmes Pub and Restaurant – half a place for food and half a museum.

They didn’t take their time to go over the menu, but ordered the first dish they saw on the menu that sounded good. When it was brought to them they ate it as quickly as they possibly could without making themselves sick while Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s portrait watched impassively from its place on the wall.

Three other teams of two did the same. Everyone posted photos of the interiors of their restaurants as well as the view from the window of their restaurants.

After this short break everyone rushed off to try and win the race.

What can you see of a city if you just jump from landmark to landmark? What impression does it leave in your memory? What do you understand about its inhabitants, or of the city’s history? You don’t get time to talk to anyone who lives there. You don’t have time to understand why the landmark  before you is a landmark, who built it and why. All you’re left with is a general impression of buildings and statues.

Or so it seems at first.

But most of them remained out in the streets and as they went from one part of the city into another they felt a subtle change, something different about the character of the place. Even the crowds of tourists couldn’t take away from that.

Both London and Paris get more than just crowds of people. They get a real torrent that floods the streets in some areas. These areas slowed the race down to a snail’s pace in some areas as the skaters did their best to snap a photo and go around the crowd.

Mila and Yuri led the race, snapping a quick shot and running to the next destination as soon as it was posted. They didn’t even check the quality of the end result and a good half of the photos were just blurry images of the tops of their heads with the landmark just barely recognizable in the background.

 

They were winning, Yuri realized as he counted the number of photos everyone had posted. Mila was taking a short break and Yuri was using this chance to see what everyone else was doing.

Of course, Otabek was the only one who actually managed to look cool in his photos.

Yuri switched to Yuuri’s account and instantly regretted it. Why did those two always have to be so disgusting? Why did they have to flirt in public?

A terrifying image dropped into his brain then…

 

_Little Yuri sat at the table, waiting for his parents to finish making dinner. Unfortunately for everyone involved, especially Yuri’s growling stomach, his parents were too busy making eyes at each other to care about dinner._

_“You’re beautiful,” Yuuri said to Victor._

_“No, you are,” Victor argued, leaned forward and rubbed his nose against Yuuri’s affectionately._

_“Hungry!” Yuri yelled, making both his parents turn with a blush._

_They ran over to him, trying to soothe him with words, but he went on demanding to be fed…_

 

What the hell was that? He was going mad, that was what it was!

He looked around, but Mila was still nowhere to be seen.

Who knew why he had those strange thoughts? Perhaps – and this explanation didn’t actually occur to Yuri – Victor’s imagination got so out of control that it slipped into Yuri’s mind? Or, perhaps, there was another explanation.

Whatever the reason, he imagined being small, no older than three years old, and sitting on Yuuri’s lap as Yuuri read a children’s book to him.

Yuri’s life had been hard. He didn’t get to go to school like other people his age. Most of his time was devoted to figure skating. His grandfather, determined that Yuri got some sort of education spent what free time Yuri had teaching him everything he could, using old textbooks as reference.

Yuri didn’t get to see his parents very much and so his grandfather had become – in a way – his mother and father.

He often remembered his time in Hasetsu with fond feelings and, although he yelled and protested, he wouldn’t have minded having Yuuri and Victor as his adopted parents.

“Yuuri!” Mila called out and he saw her hurrying towards him with a shopping back in her hand.

“Finally. I was about to leave without you,” he lied.

They rushed down the street, eager to make up for lost time.

 

Victor finished typing out another caption with a little message for Yuuri on the end when the sound of screams made him raise his head.

“Oh my god! It’s Victor Nikiforov!” a group of people shouted, sprinting straight for him.

It was, without a doubt, the most frightening race Victor had ever seen.

Acting more on instinct than anything else, he grabbed Chris by the arm and made a run for it.

The figure skaters were fit and in much better physical shape than most of the people chasing them, but there was one thing their training couldn’t help them with: a second group of equally excited fans running at them from the other side.

Chris and Victor stopped to re-evaluate their plan and look for handy side alleys, but the universe refused to provide them with this escape route.

The crowds were closing in on them. Any minute now they would run straight into each other, flattening the two figure skaters between them.

Chris held his arms out and shouted, “Stop!” at the top of his voice.

To his surprise, they did. Or, at least, the front row or two did and the back ones crashed into them, coming to a stop as well.

“It’s Christophe Giacometti!” someone screamed.

More screams filled the air and a couple of fans leapt.

“I’ve got Victor’s elbow!”

“I have his knee!”

“I have his –”

Victor and Chris panicked. Despite all their jokes on the subject, they’d never had people actually throw themselves onto either of them before.

“What do we do?” Victor asked out of the corner of his mouth, still trying to smile winningly at the fans as someone stood on his toe and someone else squeezed his arm too tightly.

“We need a distraction,” Chris answered. “Any ideas?”

“Look, Chris! It’s my fiancé and the love of my life!” Victor exclaimed.

“You mean Yuuri Katsuki?” Chris shouted back, playing along.

The fans all turned to see where Eros was and the figure skaters slipped into the crowd, making for the closest side street.

“I can’t believe that worked!” Victor exclaimed as they turned a few more times and picked up the pace. “That’s the most cliché distraction in the world!”

“It is,” Chris agreed. “We need to be careful in –” He burst out laughing.

“What?” Victor asked. “What?”

“There’s lipstick on your face. Do you want me to wipe it off?” Chris offered.

“Hold on.” Victor pulled out his phone and turned the camera on to take a look at himself. “Hmm… Russian red. It’s Yuuri’s favourite shade.”

Chris chuckled. “Sneaky of them to use it, isn’t it?”

Victor got a tissue and wiped it off with a sigh.

Chris didn’t comment. He knew exactly what was going through Victor’s mind in that moment.

 

_Yuuri felt he need3ed something more to get into the right mood for this Eros routine and when it was time for World’s he finally had it: lipstick. He’d kept it a secret from everyone, especially Victor._

_He slipped away before the warm up and put it on somewhere out of everyone’s sight._

_When Victor saw Yuuri skate out onto the ice with the warm up group, when Yuuri circled him before taking a spot by his side, when his eyes twinkled in that way that only Yuuri’s could, Victor felt his knees go weak._

_Lipstick! His Yuuri was wearing lipstick!_

_He did his best to focus on the warmup and succeeded, despite Yuuri circling him several times and blowing kisses at him._

_And then the warmup ended and Victor had to stand next to Yuuri while they waited for their turns._

_His wonderful fiancé carried on as if nothing was wrong and Victor did his best to try to do the same._

_He swallowed nervously and prepared to give him a coach to pupil talk. He went over what he was going to say several times in his head and when the time came he opened his mouth, determined to say all the words he’d prepared._

_Yuuri was out on the ice. He turned and looked at Victor, as if surprised to see him and slid a finger down his cheek with a smile. “Are you ready, my dear?”_

_Victor nodded, feeling a bead of sweat trickle down the side of his face._

_Yuuri leaned closer and Victor trembled, feeling his fiancé’s warm breath on his cheek. Yuuri lingered there for a moment, a few tantalizing centimeters away and planted a kiss on Victor’s cheek. “Let me show you how it’s done.”_

_Afterwards Victor begged Yuuri to wear the lipstick again, which resulted in many very pleasant memories._

The two friends arrived at their next destination and Victor did his best to focus on the race.

 

The day ended and everyone reunited with their group once more to tally up the photos, figure out who won and have a little celebration.

Phichit and Chris texted each other about some of the photos: Mila and Yuri’s last four photos were completely incomprehensible. After a bit of arguing, it was decided that they didn’t count.

To everyone’s surprise, the race ended in a draw.

“We can still snap one more photo,” Mila offered. “Us in front of the great Victor Nikiforov! What do you think?”

Everyone at the table burst out laughing. The incident with the fans had ended up all over the internet as well.

Dinner seemed to stretch out forever as everyone exchanged stories about the odd things that happened to them during the day.

“Here’s to a great vacation!” Chris offered, raising his glass, and everyone followed suit.

“A toast to our vacation!” Phichit exclaimed very nearly at the same time as Chris.

Time had been a big factor on this trip. After all, Paris and London were one hour apart.

 

There was only one night left now, one more night before the reunion. Both Victor and Yuuri couldn’t sleep a wink that night.

Around three in the morning Yuuri wrote to Victor, _I can’t sleep._

 _Neither can I_ , Victor wrote back.

_Less than a day left_

_Yes_

_I really miss you_

_Me too_

_I can’t wait to see your face_

They sent each other little reminders for the upcoming flight, then just a collection of different-coloured hearts.

As the sun rose over the horizon they were still sending each other messages.

_You’re going to be late for your flight!_

_So are you!_

_Your flight is first!_

_And yours isn’t long after!_

They went through their morning routines, continuing to send each other messages, not having the heart to break the conversation off.

Both Yuuri and Victor rushed everyone, convinced they were all taking too long to do everything on purpose. The whole pre-flight ritual: checking in, going to the gate and waiting to board was a kind of torture for both of them. Why did it have to take so long? Why couldn’t they get on their plane and leave faster?

The flights to St. Petersburg, which many people would’ve said were really not that long, dragged on forever for two people, who had to use all their self-control to keep from urging the plane on. The last torture that impatient people have to endure is that wonderful moment when you’ve already landed and everyone is piled in the aisles waiting for the doors to open to let them out.

Victor landed first and wished he could text Yuuri, who got the fun of texting Victor as soon as he landed.

 

What story about two lovers separating for a time would be complete without a joyous reunion? Both are running towards each other with happy smiles on their faces (towards each other meaning they ran across the airport, hoping they were running in the right direction first until at last they _did_ see the other person coming towards them), both have their arms spread out, dropping little objects behind them that weren’t important.

“Yuuri!”

“Victor!”

They ran until they could finally throw their arms around each other.

“Oh, Yuuri!”

“Oh, Victor!”

They clung on to each other tightly, exclaiming each other’s names over and over again and planting kisses all over each other’s faces.

Mila and Phichit were recording the joyous occasion. Georgi was wiping tears away from his eyes. Chris was laughing.

Yuri rolled his eyes and walked over to Otabek. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” Otabek said back.

They nodded and knew they didn’t need to add anything else. They understood each other too well to waste their time doing that. Instead they watched the happy couple that was almost crying tears of joy at being reunited.

Yuri yawned pointedly. “Let’s go. We have passport control to deal with,” he said. He and Otabek walked away.

Everyone else soon joined them. Victor and Yuuri were at the back, arms around each other and big grins from ear to ear on both their faces.

They made it!

 

That night at the hour when night turned to morning Victor sat on the bed with Yuuri sitting between his legs. He played with Yuuri’s hair while Yuuri’s fingers drew circles around Victor’s knees.

They’d spent the day telling each other all about their trips with barely a pause for breath or food. Now they sat in silence, as if all the words had been spoken.

Yuuri hummed softly and Victor recognized the tune of _Stammi vicino_.

“Yuuri?” Victor whispered.

“Hmm?” Yuuri closed his eyes as Victor kissed the top of his head.

“Yuuri, _can_ we have a fancy wedding? _Please_?”

For several seconds it was silent as Yuuri considered his answer. “I’ll think about it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There were so many places mentioned in this chapter that I didn’t dare put a photo for each. Also I admit that I don’t have many good quality photos of Paris, but I can offer [photos of London](https://www.flickr.com/photos/115120419@N08/sets/72157672150414431) for anyone who is curious.
> 
> Another fic done? No way! This might be the fastest I’ve ever written a multi-chapter fic…maybe… If I manage to finish it in time, I want to post the first chapter of the ice dancing AU (finally!) soon, otherwise, I am off on a 2-week hiatus. I will still reply to comments when I can, but I doubt I’ll post anything until I get back. And, as always, thank you for reading, leaving kudos and comments!!


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